Mesteres and Margins: Peripheries and Centers of/in Clerical Literature

This session examines clerical literatures of the Iberian Peninsula, especially those associated with what has been known as the mester de clerecía or “cleric’s craft.” The work of the session is to contemplate and/or complicate notions of centers and peripheries connected to this literature. Broadly construed, centrifugal and centripetal forces can be seen inside the works themselves, within their original context of production and reception, or in later receptions and examinations of this literature (including post-medieval and modern ones). This conversation builds on recent intellectual discussions stemming from events around the recent 150th anniversary of the coining of the term mester de clerecía to describe this clerical literature.Matthew V. Desing