$The conference will be divided into four thre\ ads: Genealogy, Textuality, Context, and Belief$
"Prowess, Idleness, David, Labor," from Frere Laurent, Somme le Roy, British Library MS Add. 54180, f. 121v. (French, end of 13th century)

MAY 17-19, 2007

International conferences on Piers Plowman have been held at Queen's College, Cambridge, in 1993; at the University of North Carolina at Asheville in 1999; and at the University of Birmingham in 2003. We are very pleased to announce that the 4th International Piers Plowman Conference will take place May 17th-19th, 2007 at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, PA, in association with the University of Pennsylvania Department of English and The Yearbook of Langland Studies

CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Plenary lectures presented by leading scholars in medieval literature and culture, including Christopher Cannon, Andy Galloway, Bruce Holsinger, Steven Justice, Anne Middleton, Wendy Scase, James Simpson, D. Vance Smith, Fiona Somerset, Nicholas Watson, and Nicolette Zeeman.

Welcome Party (Wednesday night, May 16th) at the home of Rita Copeland and David Wallace

Paleography seminar, featuring manuscripts from the University of Pennsylvania Rare Book and Manuscript Library Collections, taught by Ralph Hanna III, Professor of Paleography, Keble College, Oxford. The seminar is limited to 25 participants. To sign up for the seminar, please contact Jennifer Jahner at jahner@sas.upenn.edu

Digital sound recording of the Piers Plowman B-text, with the assistance of celebrated poet Charles Bernstein, PENNsound, and the Kelly Writers House. We are looking for readers! If you are interested in recording 300 lines of Piers Plowman in Middle English, please contact Megan Cook at cookm@english.upenn.edu

Final Banquet at The Hall of Flags

The conference is co-sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The conference organizers would like to thank our contributors: School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, Penn Department of English, Penn History of Material Texts seminar, Princeton University Medieval Studies Program, Rutgers University Department of English, and the University of Georgia Department of English. We are also grateful to the British Library and the Free Library of Philadelphia for permissions to use images from their collections on our website.