This coming Thursday (May 11), the 52nd Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies kicks off at Western Michigan University. As a scholar with interest in both Medieval Studies and Jewish Studies, I thought a schedule listing all of the sessions and papers that touch on Jewish topics might be useful, since I for one, always scan the program looking for key words like "Jewish," "Judaism," etc.. I always miss some panel that did not show up in my search. I hope this can serve as a supplement to your own searches!

I got this idea from Kristen Mapes who does the same thing with Digital Humanities at KZOO.

I am sure that I've made a mistake or two (or twelve) or missed something, so please forgive (and correct) me! You can let me know on twitter @margotvalles1 or in the comments section below.

Program Numbers are listed first, marked with a "#". This is followed by the location (in parentheses). After this, the title of the session is given. Presenters and participants are listed in bullet points, separated from their role or paper titles by a ✶.

Thursday, May 11

10:00 am

#13 (Fetzer 2016) Language Anxiety in the Iberian Peninsula

• John August Bollweg ✶ "Nor Have I Thought to Learn More from the Jews by Any Means...": Anxiety about Hebrew Language and Learning in the Religious and Medical Writings of Arnau de Vilanova

#31 (Bernhard 204) Sara Lipton, Dark Mirror: Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography (A Panel Discussion)

• Deeana Copeland Klepper ✶ Sara Lipton's Dark Mirror: Reflections"
• Elizabeth Carson Pastan ✶ Sara Lipton's Dark Mirror: An Art History Perspective
• Sara Lipton ✶ Respondent

1:30 pm

#93 (Sangren 1910) Theorizing Orientalism in the Middle Ages (A Roundtable)

• Sierra Lomuto ✶ Presider
• Shokoofeh Rajabzadeh ✶ Introductory Remarks: What is Orientalism?
• Leila K. Notako ✶ Charlemagne, Chris Kyle, and Cross-Temporal Orientalism
• Lydia Yaitsky Kertz ✶The Cloth as Skin: Reading the Two Women in Emaré
• Dylan Thompson ✶ Criticism through Deviation: Examining Richard of Devize's Chronicon, Chaucer's Prioress's Tale and the Jewish Ritual Murder Plot
• Stephanie Pentz ✶ East Teaches West: Orientalism and Its Alternatives in the Polychronicon
• Tamar M. Boyadjian ✶ Respondent

3:30 pm

#129 (Bernhard 210) "Can These Bones Come To Life?": Politics and Diversity in Re-construction, Re-enactment, and Re-creation

• Lida Evans ✶ (Re)Animating the Star-Spangled Golem: The Medieval Roots and Modern Controversies Surrounding a Comic Book Legend

Friday, May 12

10:00 am

#177 (Fetzer 1060) Reconsidering the Boundaries of Late Medieval Political Literature I

• Martin Borýsekc✶ Political Literature without a Political Nation? An Assessment of the Takkanot ha-Kahal Texts and Other Legislative Literature in Jewish Communities at the End of the Middle Ages

#217 (Bernhard 213) Navigating Seas of Faith: Authority and Religious Identity in the Mediterranean

• David D. Terry ✶ United by Fear: Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Merchants Facing a Pirate Attack in 1301

1:30 pm (Fri.)

#242 (Schneider 1130) Negativity and Emptiness in the Intellectual Culture of the Middle Ages

• Karen Webb ✶ Original Sin and the Vacuum: Blind Synagoga and Deaf Ecclesia in Medieval Representations

#251 (Schneider 1265) Medieval Arabic Scholarship I: Transmission of Knowledge and Translation

• Ilana Sasson ✶ Jewish-Karaite Medieval Bible Translation and Commentary in Arabic

#276 (Bernhard Brown & Gold Room) Cross-Cultural Images and Crafts: Transcultural Objects and Artisanal Migration

• Sharon Farmer ✶ Christian/Jewish Interaction in Parisian Luxury Workshops of the Thirteenth Century

3:30 pm (Fri.)

#308 (Schneider 1245) The Western Iberian Kingdoms after 1143 II

• Pedro Martinez ✶ Refugee Crisis? The Sephardic Diaspora in Portugal (1492-1506)

#323 (Schneider 2345) Medieval Literature as Children's Literature: Studies in Adaptation II

• Lisa Bevevino ✶ The Pleasure and Pain of Queen Vashti: A Medieval Judeo-Provençal Adaptation of the "Book of Esther" for a Public Audience

#328 (Bernhard 205) Networks of Books and reader in Medieval Mediterranean II: Readers

• Nadia Zeldes ✶ Reading, Copying and Translating the Hebrew Sefer Josippon in Renaissance Italy

#334 (Bernhard 213) The Faith in One's Food: Food as an Aspect of Religious Proselytization and Polemic

• Martha M. Daas ✶ The Problem with Pork: Anxiety and Consumption in Medieval Spain
• Margot B. Valles ✶ Food and Religious Identity in Early Yiddish Epic

#335 (Bernhard Brown & Gold Room) Trading with Infidels: Legal Approaches to Interfaith Commerce

• Leor Halevi ✶ Presider
• Jessica Goldberg ✶ Trading on Identity: Geniza Merchants and the Law
• Stefan Stantchev ✶ Beyond Trade and Crusade: Venetian and Genoese Perspectives toward Trade with the Infidel
• Giuseppe Marcocci ✶ The Iberian Paradox: Trade with Muslims and Legal Fluctuations from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic (Fourteenth-Fifteenth Century)

Saturday, May 13

10:00 am

#370 (Schneider 1265) Urban Economies in the Fourteenth Century

• Sarah Ifft Decker ✶ Credit and Crisis: Catalan Jewish Women Moneylenders before and after the Black Death

#373 (Schneider 1320) Making the English Book

• Damian Fleming ✶ Making "Hebrew" in English Books

#380 (Schneider 1355) Women and the Bible in the Middle Ages

• Sarah Andyshak ✶ Allegorical Matriarchs: Synagoga, Ecclesia, and Their Unusual children in the Toledo Bible moralisée

#390 (Bernhard 211) Medieval Bridesmaids: Wedding, Bedding, and Bad Behavior in Romance

• Elizabeth Melick ✶ Love on the Battlefield: Interfaith Attraction and Conversion in Three Middle English Romances

1:30 pm (Sat.)

#429 (Schneider 1345) Jewish Identity in Medieval Passion Plays

• Kelly E. Hall ✶ Presider
• Denise O'Malley, Text as Image ✶ A Consideration of Bonaventure's Meditations on the Life of Christ as a Source for Performances of Jewish Identity in the Late Medieval French Passion Plays
• Carlotta Lea Posth ✶ Religious Instruction through Theatres in Medieval French and German Cities: The Depiction of Redemption and Jewish Deviance in Passion Plays

3:30 pm (Sat.)

#480 (Schneider 1340) Signs of Identity Marks of Otherness: New Approaches to Visual Culture II

• Pamela Nourrigeon ✶ Think the Other through the Image: Anti-Jewish Discourse in the Medieval Manuscript
• María Marcos Cobaleda ✶ The Construction of the Identity of Islamic Societies throughout the Arts: Encounters and Confrontations in Late Medieval Mediterranean (Twelfth-Fifteenth Centuries)

Sunday, May 14

8:30 am

#503 (Fetzer 1045) Alfonso al-Hakim: Significance and Impact of Alfonso X of Castile's Exchanges with the Islamic World

• Veronica Menaldi ✶ Presider
• Erik Ekman ✶ Arabic Authority in Biblical History in the General estoria
• Gegory S. Hutcheson ✶ Reading the Siete Partidas Transconfessionally
• Luis Miguel dos Santos ✶ Alfonso X's Geographical Ideas: Arabic Sources and Castillian Legacy
• Robey Clark Patrick ✶ Caliphs and Kingship: Calida e Dimna and the Transmission of Islamic Political Theory to Christian Kingdoms under Alfonso X

10:30 am (Sun.)

#559 (Schneider 1340) Revisiting Alphonsine Historiography and Legislation

• Sandra Fildes ✶ "Foolish Belief": The Status of Muslims and Jews under the Reign of Alfonso X

#565 (Bernhard 158) Victorian Medievalism: Translation and Adaptation

Sarah Star ✶ Women in the East: Exoticism and Healing in Sir Beues of Hamtoun and Ivanhoe

Possibly also dealing with JS topics:

Thursday, 1:30 pm #56 (Fetzer 1010) Sessions in Honor of Maureen Boulton I: Vernacular Religious Literature

• Thelma Fenster ✶ What Did Medieval Christian Laywomen Know about the Hebrew Bible?

Friday, 1:30 pm: 233 Fetzer 1040: Dress and Textiles II: Real and Unreal

• John Block Friedman ✶ "Monstrous Men of Fashion":Striped Costume in a Danish Church Wall Painting
• Joyce Kubiski ✶ Tall Hats, Scrolling Brims, and the Byzantine Scholar in Late Medieval European Painting

Friday, 3:30 pm: #307 (Schneider 1225) Early Medieval Europe III: Intellectuals and the Wider World

• Peter Darby ✶ The Pentateuch Diagram in the Codex Amiatinus

Saturday, 10:00 am #377 (Schneider 1340) The Eastern Mediterranean: History and Historical Texts

• William S. Murrell ✶ Translating the Holy Land: Interpreters and Pilgrimage during the Crusader Period

Saturday, 1:30 pm #416 (Schneider 1160) Space and Limits in Aljamiado Literature

Saturday, 1:30 pm #428 (Schneider 1340) Signs of Identity, Marks of Otherness: New Approaches to Visual Culture I