ENGL 622: Medieval Women Writers, Fall 2011
Seminar Presentations

Each member of a graduate seminar is expected to participate fully in discussion of the material we cover; beyond that, participants are expected to initiate discussion by bringing forward questions, resources, and problems that can add depth and dimension to the works we are discussing already.

In this seminar I will ask each of you to make two presentations. Since most of you have limited experience working with medieval literature, the first set of short oral presentations will target background material that will help you contextualize the authors we are reading. Your goal in making these presentations will be to give us an explanatory overview of your question, and then to provide us with a brief guide to further resources available (both in print and online) for researching a particular topic in medieval women's writing; this report should be made in about 20-30 minutes. You will need to provide a handout, properly documented in 2009 MLA style, for your classmates so that they can consult these resources if need be, and you should also turn in a 2-3 page critique of one of these resources that you turn in to Dr. K on the day of the presentation.  

 I’m scheduling these presentations pretty early so that you have adequate background; I know that means some scrambling for you, but that can’t be helped. I will give each of you a book or source that will serve as a good starting place for your research, and will be happy to consult with you to help you cull through the information you find on your chosen topic.

The second presentation can be made in teams if you like, though each person is responsible for making a full contribution. You will choose one or two secondary critical readings on the author/works being discussed on the night you present. You should look for critical readings that both present interesting issues for discussion AND present interesting critical perspectives on the work; that way we can discuss both the content and the critical lens as stepping stones to discussion. You MUST provide the reading information at the seminar meeting the week before your presentation, so that people have a week to get the material and read it; if you need me to photocopy material from a book and make a PDF for you, I'll be happy to do so, but please give me some lead time to do this in case the copier is not having a Good Day. Make sure that you provide us with a full MLA citation for the reading so that people who wish to use it in their scholarship will have the appropriate bibliographic info. DO NOT JUST USE J-STOR TO FIND THESE READINGS. THERE ARE MANY JOURNALS AND SOURCES THAT ARE NOT IN J-STOR. Find readings that you think are good and interesting, not just a convenience sample.

Your presentation--which must be a minimum of 40 minutes--should not just be a summary of the reading (since we will all have read your material); it should be an extension of it, asking questions about the interpretations put forward in it, using it to open up the text we are reading--in other words, using these readings as scholars do, as lenses for reading the text rather than "the last word" in a discussion. You are required to write up a 2-3 page critique of one of the sources and turn it in to Dr. K on the day of the presentation.