Conference Agenda

From c1950, medieval music has meant the emergence of polyphonic music. Enshrined in the mission of the earliest RISM volumes planned as early as 1952, this emphasis has had several scholarly and institutional effects, ranging from conferences being split by the number of voice parts in the music under discussion to the prestige of the discovery of new, and frequently fragmentary sources. Only in the last ten years has the distinction between monophony and polyphony begun to break down; now is the time to review this trajectory and to use it to ask further questions about words and notes, manuscripts with and without music, and Latin and vernacular languages.

In pursuit of these aims the hybrid roundtable brings together eleven scholars from seven countries. In person: Nicholas Bleisch (KU Leuven); Mary Channen Caldwell (University of Pennsylvania); Mark Everist (University of Southampton); Áine Palmer (Yale University); Jennifer Saltzstein (Indiana University). Remotely: Christelle Cazeaux (Schola Cantorum Basel); Luca Gatti. (Università di Pavia); Uri Jacob (Bar-Ilan University); Stefano Milonia (Universität Tübingen); Anne-Zoé Rillon-Marne (Université Catholique d’Angers); Gaël Saint-Cricq (Université Lyon-2).

The roundtable will represent a mid-point in a discussion that already started in its planning stages. Since many roundtables rarely move beyond presentations and perhaps a response, our innovative approach replaces conventional position papers with written statements circulated in advance. One month before the AMS meeting, each member of the roundtable will publish on a dedicated website a 1000-word statement of the area in which they would like to raise questions; this will be publicised through online lists, the digital copy of the AMS program, and through QR codes on display at the session. This allows not just for the preparation of questions by the participants but also by anyone else attending AMS. The website will also include a link to a Google form where those who consult the texts can post questions that we can use as the basis for the conversation in Minneapolis as a prompt for both the team and the members of the audience.