Medievalisms In The Postcolonial World

This fascinating study explores the intersection of postcolonial theory and medievalism. While the latter has traditionally been defined primarily in terms of European nationalism, the essays in this volume discuss medievalism in regions as wide-ranging as the United States, India, Latin America, and Africa. This innovative approach demonstrates the ways alternative conceptions of medieval and modern history can provide new insights into the idea of the Middle Ages and the origins and legacy of colonialism. Through diverse and thought-provoking essays, the contributors demonstrate that writing the Middle Ages has been key in colonial and postcolonial struggles over racial, ethnic, and territorial identity. They also argue that colonial medievalisms are crucial to understanding the history of entrenched temporal and political partitions, such as medieval/modern and East/West. The essays are divided into four sections that address a set of related questions raised by the literary and political intersections of medievalism and colonialism. Each section is followed by a response—two are by postcolonial theorists and two by medievalists—that carefully considers the essay's arguments and comments on its implications for the respondent’s field of study. This volume is the first to bring medievalists and postcolonial scholars into conversation about the shared histories of their fields and the potential for mutual endeavor. Medievalisms in the Postcolonial World will both redirect scholarship in medievalism and inform approaches to temporality in postcolonial studies.

The typical vision of the Middle Ages western popular culture represents to its global audience is deeply Eurocentric. The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones imagined entire medievalist worlds, but we see only a fraction of them through the stories and travels of the characters. Organised around the theme of mobility, this Element seeks to deconstruct the Eurocentric orientations of western popular medievalisms which typically position Europe as either the whole world or the centre of it, by making them visible and offering alternative perspectives. How does popular culture represent medievalist worlds as global-connected by the movement of people and objects? How do imagined mobilities allow us to create counterstories that resist Eurocentric norms? This study represents the start of what will hopefully be a fruitful and inclusive conversation of what the Middle Ages did, and should, look like.

This volume provides a comprehensive introduction to postcolonial medieval studies and examines the historical connections between postcolonial studies and medieval studies. Lisa Lampert-Weissig provides new readings of medieval texts including Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, Mandeville's Travels and Guillaume de Palerne, a romance about werewolves set in Norman Sicily. In addition, she examines Walter Scott's Ivanhoe from the perspective of postcolonial medieval studies, as well contemporary novels by Salman Rushdie, Tariq Ali, Juan Goytisolo, and Amitav Ghosh.

What is the role of literature in our global landscape today? How do local authors respond to the growing worldwide power of English and the persisting effects of the colonial systems that paved the way for globalization today? These questions have often been approached very differently by postcolonialists and by students of world literature, but over the past two decades, a developing dialogue between these divergent approaches has produced robust scholarship and sometimes fractious debate, as issues of language, politics, and cultural difference have come to the fore. Drawing on a wide variety of cases, from medieval Wales to contemporary Syria and Australia, and on works written in Arabic, Basque, English, Hindi, and more, this collection explores the mutual illumination that can be gained through the interaction of postcolonial and world literary perspectives.

Explores the ways in which a range of modern textual cultures have continued to engage creatively with the medieval past in order to come to terms with the global present.

This volume maps the phenomenon of medievalism in Aotearoa, initially as an import by the early white settler society, and as a form of nation building that would reinforce Britishness and ancestral belonging. This colonial narrative underpins the volume’s focus on the imperial relationship in chapters on the academic study of the Middle Ages, on medievalism in film and music, in manuscript and book collections, and colonial stained glass and architecture. Through the alternative 21st-century frameworks of a global Middle Ages and Aotearoa’s bicultural nationalism, the volume also introduces Maori understandings of the ancestral past that parallel the European epoch and, at the opposite end of the spectrum, the phenomenon of global right-wing medievalism, as evidenced in the Alt-right extremism underpinning the Christchurch mosque attack of 2019. The 11 chapters trace the transcultural moves and networks that comprise the shift from the 20th-century study of the Middle Ages as an historical period to manifestations of medievalism as the reception and interpretation of the medieval past in postmedieval times. Collectively these are viewed as indications of the changing public perception about the meaning and practice of the European heritage from the colonial to contemporary era. The volume will appeal to educationists, scholars, and students interested in the academic history of the Middle Ages in New Zealand; enthusiasts of film, music, and performance of the medieval; members of the public interested in Aotearoa’s history and popular culture; and all who enjoy the colourful reinventions of medievalism.

Medievalisms 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, exploring: The influence of medieval cultural concepts on key authors such as Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer, George Eliot and Mark Twain The continued appeal of medieval cultural figures such as King Arthur and Robin Hood The influence of the medieval on disciplines such as politics, music, film, and art.

Essays on the post-modern reception and interpretation of the middle ages.