Last week the Derivate team headed to the Anglistiktag annual conference in Munich! Our panel was entitled "Repeating, Retelling, Returning: Literary Derivation and its Affordances." Anna, Matteo, and Anna-Rose presented papers showcasing work that will appear in a forthcoming special issue of Anglia. The panel was ably chaired by Philomena and, following the papers, the four team members participated in an enjoyable and generative discussion with the audience. Thank-you to the Anglistiktag organisers and to those who attended our session!

Philomena Wolf and Anna Opanasenko organized two sessions on Medievalism and Contemporary Retellings at the 24th Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer Society, hosted by the University of Freiburg. Seven excellent papers were presented, covering creative-critical medievalism and the afterlives of medieval texts in YA fiction, romantasy, and other contemporary genres.

The conference Hush! Practicing Silence in Literature and Culture starts from the premise that literature and other cultural products function as means by which silence materializes. As a result, its ambivalent effects are newly negotiated. We seek to explore various forms and affordances of silence in Anglophone literatures and media, addressing the intentions, drawbacks, and potentialities implicated in instances and mediations of silence.