Full Description
Beginning in 1976 with the first issue of the journal Studies in Medievalism, all things medieval and the concept of medievalism became a hot topic in culture studies. Medievalism examines how different groups, individuals, or eras use and shape the image of the Middle Ages, differentiating between historical knowledge of the Middle Ages and what we have made the period out to be. The 13 essays in this book explore the medieval invasion of today's media and consider the various ways--from film and print to websites and video games--that the Middle Ages have been packaged for consumption. Essays encompass diverse theoretical perspectives and are grouped loosely around distinct functions of medievalism, including the exposure of recent social concerns; the use of medieval images in modern political contexts; and the medieval's influence on products of today's popular culture. The legitimization of the study of medievalism and the effect of medievalism on the more traditional subject of medieval studies are also discussed.
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Contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Medievalism of Popular Culture
1. Chaucer for a New Millennium: The BBC Canterbury Tales
2. "If I Lay My Hands on the Grail": Arthurianism and Progressive Rock
3. The Sound of Silents: Aurality and Medievalism in Benjamin Christensen's Häxan
4. Antichrist Superstars: The Vikings in Hard Rock and Heavy Metal
5. The Future Is What It Used to Be: Medieval Prophecy and Popular Culture
6. Idealized Images of Wales in the Fiction of Edith Pargeter/Ellis Peters
7. Places Don't Have to Be True to Be True: The Appropriation of King Arthur and the Cultural Value of Tourist Sites
8. "Accident My Codlings": Sitcom, Cinema and the Re-writing of History in The Blackadder
9. Medieval History and Cultural Forgetting: Oppositional Ethnography in The Templar Revelation
10. Teaching the Middle Ages
11. Virtually Medieval: The Age of Kings Interprets the Middle Ages
12. A World unto Itself: Autopoietic Systems and Secondary Worlds in Dungeons & Dragons
13. Anything Different Is Good: Incremental Repetition, Courtly Love, and Purgatory in Groundhog Day
About the Contributors
Index
