Call for Papers Beowulf & Circulations
The text of Beowulf was consigned in writing over two centuries after its initial oral composition. It is extant in only one manuscript, yet resonates in at least Andreas (from another codex), and once circulated as part of a thriving oral literary economy now no longer retrievable.
With its interlaced, woven patterning of episodes, Beowulf is in itself a locus for circulation, whether that of an elusive necklace (eventually gifted to Wiglaf by the dying hero), severed body parts, or ring-adorned swords, in the wake of brutal dismemberments, systematic lootings, and re-giftings.
Its tantalizingly early Scandinavian plot testifies to intense cultural contacts and circulations across early medieval Northern Europe, and has since become the starting point and argument of numerous adaptations, with Beowulf slithering, dragon-like, between genres and media.
We invite 25-minute papers broaching any aspect of Beowulf and medieval and postmedieval circulation (whether sources or intertextual contacts, internal echoes, mentions of travel, afterlives, etc.), andfrom linguistic, literary, or historical perspectives.
Proposals should include a 300-word abstract, a brief bibliography, and a short biographical note (with contact email). The submission deadline is January 10, 2026.
The organizing and scientific committee: Florence Bourgne, Wilfrid Rotgé, Leo Carruthers, Julia Pineau, Louise Simongiovanni, Remon Badan
Submit your file as .pdf, .doc, .docx, or .rtf via this link:
Editions
Crépin, André, ed. and trans. Beowulf: Édition diplomatique et texte critique, traduction française, commentaires et vocabulaire. 2 vols. Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 329. Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1991.
Fulk, R.D., Robert E. Bjork, and John D. Niles, eds. Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg [1922, 1936, 1950]. 4th edn. Toronto Old English Series. Toronto ONT: University of Toronto Press, 2008.
Some recent translations
Crépin, André, ed. and trans. Beowulf. Rev. ed. Lettres gothiques. Paris: Le Livre de poche, 2007.
Shippey, Tom, trans. Beowulf: Translation and Commentary. Ed. and comm. Leonard Neidorf. London: Uppsala Books, 2023.
Rotgé, Wilfrid, ed. and trans. Beowulf. Paris: Sorbonne Université Presses, 2025.
Recent criticism—a selection
Dumitrescu, Irina. ‘Beowulf and Andreas: Intimate Relations’. In Dating Beowulf: Studies in Intimacy, ed. Daniel C. Remein and Erica Weaver, 257-78. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019.
Leneghan, Francis. ‘Beowulf, the Wrath of God and the Fall of the Angels’. English Studies 105.3 (2024): 383-403.
Porck, Thijs. ‘Onomasiological Profiles of Old English Texts: Analysing the Vocabulary of Beowulf, Andreas and the Old English Martyrology through Linguistic Linked Data’. Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 81.3-4 (2021): 359-383.
Chance, Jane. ‘Tolkien’s Classical Beowulf and England’s Heroic Age’. Tolkien Studies 15 (2018): 59-91.
Gautier, Alban. Beowulf au paradis: Figures de bons païens dans l’Europe du Nord au haut Moyen Âge. Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2017.
O’Donoghue, Heather. Beowulf: Poem, Poet and Hero. London: Bloomsbury, 2024.
Swain, Larry, and Ophelia Eryn Hostetter, eds. Teaching Beowulf: Practical Approaches. Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture. Kalamazoo MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2024.
Torres-Hergueta, Enrique. The Germanic Heroic Tradition in Video Games: Playing Mass Medievalism. The New Middle Ages. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025.
Verse translations and rewritings—a selection
Purvis, Meghan. Beowulf: A New Translation. London: Penned in the Margins, 2013.
Headley, Maria Dahvana, ed. Beowulf: A New Translation. New York: MCD x Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.
Gardner, Jane. Grendel’s Mother. Auckland (New Zealand): Lasavia Publishing, 2022.
Prose rewritings—a selection
Crichton, Michael. Eaters of the Dead. The Manuscript of Ibn Fadlan Relating His Experiences with the Northmen in A.D. 922. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.
Crichton, Michael. ‘A Factual Note on Eaters of the Dead’. In Eaters of the Dead. The Manuscript of Ibn Fadlan Relating His Experiences with the Northmen in A.D. 922,. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992.
Morrison, Susan Signe. Grendel’s Mother: The Saga of the Wyrd-Wife. Winchester: Top Hat Books, 2015.
Headley, Maria Dahvana. The Mere Wife. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.
Emmerichs, Sharon. Shield Maiden. London: Head of Zeus, 2023.
Graphic novels
Hinds, Gareth. Beowulf. Cambridge MA: Candlewick Press, 2007.
Weinersmith, Zach, and Boulet. Bea Wolf. New York: First Second Books, 2023.
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