Minutes from the International Medieval Congress in Leeds, 2006

Minutes 
Meeting of The John Gower and Hypertext Project
IMC in Leeds
July 12, 2006
10:00-11:30

Attending:  Lynn Arner, Isabel Davis, Georgiana Donavin, Eve Salisbury, Diane Watt

Purpose: To propose ideas and delegate work for the Project

Proposals:

1.  To change our name to “The Gower Project.”  This new name would be more inviting to those who are not interested or have no expertise in hypertext.

2.  To make a more concerted effort to include theoretical criticism and scholars of a wider variety in our online bibliography. 

3.  To investigate the possibility of becoming a non-profit organization so that it might be easier to seek grants in the future.

 4. To create an advisory board for the Project, with Georgiana Donavin and Diane Watt as co-directors. 

5.  To establish an online journal.  We decided to move forward on this next year.

6.  To institute an online discussion list so that we can share our work and stay abreast of plans for the Project.  

Delegated tasks:

1.  Communications

Everyone agreed to email three other people to let them know about the Project.

Lynn will email those who have completed dissertations in Gower and invite them to join us.

2.  The Web Site

Although he could not be present at the meeting, Malte Urban has offered to inquire into a domain name for the site.

Update from the International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, 2007

The Gower Project sponsored a session entitled “John Gower’s Hypertext,” including the following papers:

Malte Urban, “John Gower’s Hypertext”
Tamara F. O’Callaghan, “The Rhizome and the Errant Narrative of Gower’s Confessio Amantis”
Jonathan Hsy, “Hypertext / Manuscript: Bilingualism and Mis-en-Page in the Confessio Amantis”

During a luncheon and informal conversations, we came to the following conclusions:

1. We have accomplished goals numbered 1, 2, 4 and 6 from the list of proposals at the Leeds meeting.

2. We have abandoned the pursuit of non-profit status for now, since affiliation with our academic institutions affords us technological aid and other resources.

3. There is no support for the creation of an online journal presently. We will throw our energies, instead, at sharpening our goals concerning the presentation of texts, including manuscripts, editions and scholarship, on our site. Once we have sharpened our goals, we can begin to apply for grants enabling future work.

4. The Gower Project site will be moving to Queen’s, Belfast in fall, 2008, with Malte Urban as webmaster.