Call for Papers for Panel

Société Rencesvals - American-Canadian Branch

Performing Faith in Romance Epics and Chivalric Romances

International Congress on Medieval Studies

Kalamazoo, May 14-16, 2026

Due by 10 September 2025

The Société Rencesvals (American-Canadian Branch) is pleased to offer a sponsored session titled "Performing Faith in Romance Epics and Chivalric Romances." We are particularly interested in papers that explore how such texts present the practices and ideas of medieval religion across a wide and interdisciplinary spectrum.

Romance-epics and chivalric romances not only shed light on the societies (local, regional, and global) in which they were produced, also inform us of those who kept them at the forefront of their national backbone. These texts are sites of religious performance in which devotional prayers and rituals, as well as discussions of spiritual matters (like conversion and apostasy), are brought to the forefront. This session aims to consider how these poets understood and presented the performance of their faith-and of the non-Catholic faiths that their subjects (and perhaps they themselves) encountered.

We invite submissions that explore the representation of performed religion in Romance language epics, especially papers that examine the theme from a non-Catholic perspective or that reflect interdisciplinary and comparative approaches including (but certainly not limited to) history, art history, literature, and material culture in relation to the study of epics and chivalric romances in Romance languages.

Please, submit your 250-word abstract to this link by September 10, 2025. Scholars interested in participating, especially those who may not benefit from standard forms of academic funding, are welcome to apply to our grant program. See our webpage for further information.