Medievalisms in a Global Age - by Angela Jane Weisl & Robert Squillace (Hardcover)

About the Book

Discusses contemporary medievalism in studies ranging from Brazil to West Africa, from Manila to New York.

Book Synopsis

Discusses contemporary medievalism in studies ranging from Brazil to West Africa, from Manila to New York.

Across the world, revivals of medieval practices, images, and tales flourish as never before. The essays collected here, informed by approaches from Global Studies and the critical discourse on the concept of a "Global Middle Ages", explore the many facets of contemporary medievalism: post-colonial responses to the enforced dissemination of Western medievalisms, attempts to retrieve pre-modern cultural traditions that were interrupted by colonialism, the tentative forging of a global "medieval" imaginary from the world's repository of magical tales and figures, and the deployment across borders of medieval imagery for political purposes. The volume is divided into two sections, dealing with "Local Spaces" and "Global Geographies". The contributions in the first consider a variety of medievalisms tied to particular places across a broad geography, but as part of a larger transnational medievalist dynamic. Those in the second focus on explicitly globalist medievalist phenomena whether concerning the projection of a particular medievalist trope across borders or the integration of "medieval" pasts from different parts of the globe in a contemporary incarnation of medievalism. A wide range of topics are addressed, from Japanese manga and Arthurian tales to The O-Trilogy of Maurice Gee, Camus, and Dungeons and Dragons.

Review Quotes

L'ouvrage inclut un index bienvenu, même si les sujets très vastes abordés tout au long des différents chapitres ne permettent finalement qu'assez peu de croisement des thèmes abordés. L'on notera toutefois que les différents auteurs font l'effort de tisser des liens notionnels entre plusieurs chapitres, ce qui permet d'approfondir la lecture en dépassant la simple juxtaposition d'études ponctuelles. "
(The book includes a welcome index, even though the broad topics addressed across the various chapters ultimately allow for relatively little thematic crossover. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the different authors make an effort to weave conceptual connections between several chapters, enabling a deeper reading that moves beyond the mere juxtaposition of isolated case studies.)-- "MODERNITÉS MÉDIÉVALES"