International Medievalisms
ByPublisher Description
Identifies and investigates international medievalism through three distinct strands: "Internationally Nationalist", "Someone Else's Past?", and "Activist Medievalism".
Medievalism - the reception of the Middle Ages - often invokes a set of tropes generally considered 'medieval', rather than consciously engaging with medieval cultures and societies. International medievalism offers an additional interpretative layer by juxtaposing two or more national cultures, at least one of which is medieval. 'National' can be aspirational: it might refer to the area within agreed borders, or to the people who live there, but it might also describe the people who understand, or imagine, themselves to constitute a nation. And once 'medieval' becomes simply a collection of ideas, it can be re-formed as desired, cast as more geographically than historically specific, or function as a gateway to an even more nebulous past.
This collection explores medievalist media from the textual to the architectural. Subjects range from The Green Children of Woolpit to Refugee Tales, and from Viking metal to Joan of Arc. As the contributors to each section make clear, for centuries the medieval has provided material for countless competing causes and cannot be contained within historical, political, or national borders. The essays show how the medieval is repeatedly co-opted and recreated, formed as much as formative: inviting us to ask why, and in service of what.
Medievalism - the reception of the Middle Ages - often invokes a set of tropes generally considered 'medieval', rather than consciously engaging with medieval cultures and societies. International medievalism offers an additional interpretative layer by juxtaposing two or more national cultures, at least one of which is medieval. 'National' can be aspirational: it might refer to the area within agreed borders, or to the people who live there, but it might also describe the people who understand, or imagine, themselves to constitute a nation. And once 'medieval' becomes simply a collection of ideas, it can be re-formed as desired, cast as more geographically than historically specific, or function as a gateway to an even more nebulous past.
This collection explores medievalist media from the textual to the architectural. Subjects range from The Green Children of Woolpit to Refugee Tales, and from Viking metal to Joan of Arc. As the contributors to each section make clear, for centuries the medieval has provided material for countless competing causes and cannot be contained within historical, political, or national borders. The essays show how the medieval is repeatedly co-opted and recreated, formed as much as formative: inviting us to ask why, and in service of what.
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About Mary Boyle
MARY BOYLE is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford and Junior Research Fellow at Linacre College, Oxford.
Other books by Mary Boyle
Mary Boyle
MARY BOYLE is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford and Junior Research Fellow at Linacre College, Oxford.
Other books by Mary Boyle
Florian Gassner
Florian Gassner received his PhD in Germanic Studies from the University of British Columbia; followed by lectureship at Mount Allison University, postdoctoral fellowship at the New Europe College in Bucharest, and DAAD-Lektorat at the Donetsk National University. He is Associate Professor of Teaching at the University of British Columbia.
Other books by Florian Gassner
Carolyne Larrington
CAROLYNE LARRINGTON is Professor of Medieval European Literature at Oxford University and Official Fellow in Medieval English Literature at St John's College, Oxford.
Other books by Carolyne Larrington
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