This collection of essays asks contributors to take the capaciousness of the word "queer" to heart in order to think about what medieval queers would have looked like and how they may have existed on the margins and borders of dominant, normative sexuality and desire. The contributors work with recent trends in queer medieval studies, blending together modern concepts of sexuality and desire with the queer configurations of eroticism, desire, and materiality as they might have existed for medieval audiences.
The current renewed interest in Medieval culture, literature and society is evident in recent fictional works such as Game of Thrones or the cinematographic adaptions of Tolkien’s pseudo-medieval universe. From a more academic viewpoint, there are a number of excellent journals and book series devoted to scholarly analysis of English Medieval language and literature. While “traditional” Medieval scholars use several valid vehicles for communication, those researchers who favour more innovative or eclectic approaches are not often given the same opportunities. New Medievalisms is unique in that it offers such scholars a platform to showcase their academic prestige and the quality and originality of their investigations. This multidisciplinary collection of essays includes six chapters and nineteen articles in which twenty-one renowned scholars analyse a wide range of issues related to Medieval England, from the Beowulf saga to echoes of Medieval literature in contemporary fiction, translation or didactics. As a result, the book is both kaleidoscopic and daring, as well as rigorous and accurate.
From King Arthur and Robin Hood, through to video games and jousting-themed restaurants, medieval culture continues to surround us and has retained a strong influence on literature and culture throughout the ages. This fascinating and illuminating guide is written by two of the leading contemporary scholars of medieval literature, and explores: The influence of medieval cultural concepts on literature and film, including key authors such as Shakespeare, Tennyson, and Mark Twain The continued appeal of medieval cultural figures such as Dante, King Arthur, and Robin Hood The influence of the medieval on such varied disciplines such as politics, music, children’s literature, and art. Contemporary efforts to relive the Middle Ages. Medievalisms: Making the Past in the Present surveys the critical field and sets the boundaries for future study, providing an essential background for literary study from the medieval period through to the twenty-first century.
Note: this is an abridged version of the book with references removed.The complete edition is also available on this website. From advertisements to amusement parks, themed restaurants, and Renaissance fairs twenty-first century popular culture is strewn with reimaginings of the Middle Ages. They are nowhere more prevalent, however, than in the films, television series, books, and video games of speculative genres: fantasy and science fiction. Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies and George R. R. Martin's multimedia Game of Thrones franchise are just two of the most widely known and successful fantasy conglomerates of recent decades. Medievalism has often been understood as a defining feature of fantasy, and as the antithesis of science fiction, but such constructs vastly underestimate the complexities of both genres and their interactions. "Medieval" has multiple meanings in fantasy and science fiction, which shift with genre convention, and which bring about their own changes as authors and audiences engage with what has gone before in the recent and deeper pasts. Earlier volumes have examined some of the ways in which contemporary popular culture re-imagines the Middle Ages, offering broad overviews, but none considers fantasy, science fiction, or the two together. The focused approach of this collection provides a directed pathway into the myriad medievalisms of modern popular culture. By engaging directly with genre(s), this book acknowledges that medievalist creative texts and practices do not occur in a vacuum, but are shaped by multiple cultural forces and concerns; medievalism is never just about the Middle Ages.
This study examines the post-medieval reception of Vienna's women's monastic institutions. Through analysis of the physical and historical place such women's institutions held in an important urban and political center, this book provides a new picture of the ways in which the medieval shapes later understandings of women's role and agency.
This volume builds on recent scholarship on contemporary poetry in relation to medieval literature, focusing on postmodern poets who work with the medieval in a variety of ways. Such recent projects invert or “queer” the usual transactional nature of engagements with older forms of literature, in which readers are asked to exchange some small measure of bewilderment at archaic language or forms for a sense of having experienced a medieval text. The poets under consideration in this volume demand that readers grapple with the ways in which we are still “medieval” – in other words, the ways in which the questions posed by their medieval source material still reverberate and hold relevance for today’s world. They do so by challenging the primacy of present over past, toppling the categories of old and new, and suggesting new interpretive frameworks for contemporary and medieval poetry alike.
An accessibly-written survey of the origins and growth of the discipline of medievalism studies. The field known as "medievalism studies" concerns the life of the Middle Ages after the Middle Ages. Originating some thirty years ago, it examines reinventions and reworkings of the medieval from the Reformation to postmodernity, from Bale and Leland to HBO's Game of Thrones. But what exactly is it? An offshoot of medieval studies? A version of reception studies? Or a new form of cultural studies? Can such a diverse field claim coherence? Should it be housed in departments of English, or History, or should it always be interdisciplinary? In responding to such questions, the author traces the history of medievalism from its earliest appearances in the sixteenth century to the present day, across a range of examples drawn from the spheres of literature, art, architecture, music and more. He identifies two major modes, the grotesque and the romantic, and focuses on key phases of the development of medievalism in Europe: the Reformation, the late eighteenth century, and above all the period between 1815 and 1850, which, he argues, represents the zenith of medievalist cultural production. He also contends that the 1840s were medievalism's one moment of canonicity in several European cultures at once. After that, medievalism became a minority form, rarely marked with cultural prestige, though always pervasive and influential. Medievalism: a Critical History scrutinises several key categories - space, time, and selfhood - and traces the impact of medievalism on each. It will be the essential guide to a complex and still evolving field of inquiry. David Matthews is Professor of Medieval and Medievalism Studies at the University of Manchester.
Queer Movie Medievalisms is the first book of its kind to grapple with the ways in which mediations between past and present, as registered on the silver screen, queerly undercut assumptions about sexuality throughout time. It will be of great interest to scholars of Gender and Sexuality, Cultural and Media Studies, Film Studies and Medieval History.
21st Century Medievalisms. Between the Global and Individual is an edited volume consisting of 14 chapters by scholars interested in contemporary medievalisms across the world. It is a timely contribution to the growing scholarship on medievalisms offering chapters that consider both the individual experiences of medievalisms, as well as those of societies and cultures at large. The chapters of the book are grouped into three parts, the first explores stereotypes and myths in medievalisms; the second examines medievalisms that speak to particular communities and audiences; and the third studies how medievalisms are impacted by or stimulate conversations of politics and gender. These chapters all reflect a growing interest in medievalisms, and the appreciation of how they are present, materialise and evolve in different contexts and offers insights into medievalisms in politics, popular culture, social activism and more. Throughout the book, examples and case studies demonstrate how medievalisms in the modern age are at times individual experiences, at other times global phenomena and sometimes are in between. Therefore these medievalisms can speak to different audiences at the same time, showcasing how the Middle Ages and their memory continue to be a pertinent topic of study within the wider field of medieval studies.
