The Impetus of Amateur Scholarship


Book Description

Three quarters of what is now considered the corpus of Middle English romances were recovered and edited between the 1760s and the 1860s by a handful of dilettante scholars (from Thomas Percy to Frederick J. Furnivall) whose progress in the understanding of the texts and of the time in which they were written follows paths very different from those of modern textual and philological analysis. The present volume describes and discusses more than one hundred primary sources (collections, editions, dissertations, and marginal writings such as glosses and introductions) in order to provide a picture of the infancy of the study of medieval romance in Britain. The volume is arranged as a chronological review of the amateur scholars and their editorial and critical practices and it was conceived as a reference book, providing a complete list of the romances edited in the period considered and information about single texts and their manuscript and printed versions. The author offers a picture of the first steps towards the gradual rehabilitation of a genre that had been despised for more than two centuries and its inclusion in the literary canon. Her discussion illuminates several aspects of the transmission and reshaping of the medieval culture in the nineteenth century and constitutes a contribution to the desideratum of a history of medieval studies.




Medievalism


Book Description

The discipline of medievalism has produced a great deal of scholarship acknowledging the "makers" of the Middle Ages: those who re-discovered the period from 500 to 1500 by engaging with its cultural works, seeking inspiration from them, or fantasizing about them. Yet such approaches - organized by time period, geography, or theme - often lack an overarching critical framework. This volume aims to provide such a framework, by calling into question the problematic yet commonly accepted vocabulary used in Medievalism Studies. The contributions, by leading scholars in the field, define and exemplify in a lively and accessible style the essential terms used when speaking of the later reception of medieval culture. The terms: Archive, Authenticity, Authority, Christianity, Co-disciplinarity, Continuity, Feast, Genealogy, Gesture, Gothic, Heresy, Humor, Lingua, Love, Memory, Middle, Modernity, Monument, Myth, Play, Presentism, Primitive, Purity, Reenactment, Resonance, Simulacrum, Spectacle, Transfer, Trauma, Troubadour Elizabeth Emery is Professor of French and Graduate Coordinator at Montclair State University (Montclair, NJ, USA); Richard Utz is Chair and Professor of Medievalism Studies in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech (Atlanta, GA, USA). Contributors: Nadia Altschul, Martin Arnold, Kathleen Biddick, William C. Calin, Martha Carlin, Pam Clements, Michael Cramer, Louise D'Arcens, Elizabeth Emery, Elizabeth Fay, Vincent Ferré, Matthew Fisher, Karl Fugelso, Jonathan Hsy, Amy S. Kaufman, Nadia Margolis, David Matthews, Lauryn S. Mayer, Brent Moberly, Kevin Moberly, Gwendolyn Morgan, Laura Morowitz, Kevin D. Murphy, Nils Holger Petersen, Lisa Reilly, Edward Risden, Carol L. Robinson, Juanita Feros Ruys, Tom Shippey, Clare A. Simmons, Zrinka Stahuljak, M. Jane Toswell, Richard Utz, Angela Jane Weisl.




History


Book Description

This book, originally published in 1977, is a survey of European historiography from its origins in the historians of Greece and Rome, through the annalists and chroniclers of the middle ages, to the historians of the late eighteenth century. The author concentrates on those writers whose works fit into a specific category of writing, or who have inlfuence the course of later historical writing, though he does deal with some of the more specialist forms of medieval historiography such as the crusading writers, and chivalrous historians like Froissart. He maintains that ‘modern’ history did not develop until the 18th Century.




Transforming Early English


Book Description

Transforming Early English shows how historical pragmatics can offer a powerful explanatory framework for the changes medieval English and Older Scots texts undergo, as they are transmitted over time and space. The book argues that formal features such as spelling, script and font, and punctuation - often neglected in critical engagement with past texts - relate closely to dynamic, shifting socio-cultural processes, imperatives and functions. This theme is illustrated through numerous case-studies in textual recuperation, ranging from the reinvention of Old English poetry and prose in the later medieval and early modern periods, to the eighteenth-century 'vernacular revival' of literature in Older Scots.




Thinking Medieval Romance


Book Description

Theoretically savvy and polemical arguments about a broad range of French, Middle English, and Mediterranean romances, that will revise scholars' and students' understanding of what medieval romances are and, more importantly, what they do to and for their readers.




The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism


Book Description

An introduction to medievalism offering a balance of accessibility and sophistication, with comprehensive overviews as well as detailed case studies.




Affective medievalism


Book Description

This book investigates the troubled relationship between medieval studies and medievalism. Acknowledging that the medieval and medievalism are mutually constitutive, and that their texts can be read using similar strategies, it argues that medieval writers offer powerful models for the ways in which contemporary desire determines the constitution of the past. This desire can not only connect us with the past but can reconnect readers in the present with the lost history of what may be called the ‘medievalism of the medievals’. In other words, to come to terms with the history of the medieval is to understand that it already offers us a model of how to relate to the past.




Robin Hood


Book Description

Robin Hood is a national English icon. He is portrayed as a noble robber, who, along with his band of merry men, is said to have stolen from the rich and given to the poor. His story has been reimagined many times throughout the centuries. Readers will be introduced to some of the candidates who are thought to have been the real Robin Hood, before journeying into the fifteenth century and learning about the various ‘rymes of Robyn Hode’ that were in existence. This book then shows how Robin Hood was first cast as an earl in the sixteenth century, before discussing his portrayals as a brutish criminal in the eighteenth century. Then learn how Robin Hood became the epitome of an English gentleman in the Victorian era, before examining how he became an Americanized, populist hero fit for the silver screen during the twentieth century. Thus, this book will take readers on a journey through 800 years of English cultural and literary history by examining how the legend of Robin Hood has developed over time




Adult Learners, Adult Education And The Communityaa


Book Description

Adults are continually learning outside of conventional education frameworks, acquiring new skills and knowledge in a range of community settings, Stephen Brookfield explores the extent and quality of this informal independent learning and the ways in which adult educators can work with independent adult learners to support and enhance their learning.




Counterfeit Amateurs


Book Description

With a Foreword by Ara ParseghianThe debate over big-time college sports, never far from the front pages, has once again moved from simmering to hot. Congress has been investigating the tax-exempt status of the NCAA in part because of questions about how commercialized college sports contribute to educational values. Athletes are challenging the NCAA on antitrust grounds to get a bigger share of the revenue. Against this backdrop, more faculty are beginning to be concerned about what is happening at their own universities and to the educational system as a whole as rampant commercialism further invades campus life through big-time sports. A leader among faculty fighting back has been Allen Sack, a co-founder of the Drake Group whose writings and public appearances, including work as an expert witness, have gained him wide recognition as an outspoken advocate for athletic reform. This book brings together in a compelling way both his personal story of life as a highly recruited athlete out of high school and a football player at Notre Dame under legendary coach Ara Parseghian and his fight, since then, as a scholar-activist against what he calls the &“academic capitalism&” of the system under current NCAA rules. Sack distinguishes his own position, as an advocate of athletes&’ rights, from the reformist stance of NCAA President Myles Brand, who believes that commercialized sport and education can peacefully coexist, and the &“intellectual elitist&” position of people like William Dowling, who would like to see big-time college sports kicked off campus altogether. It is a battle with high stakes for all concerned, not least the athletes whose exploitation by the system has been the motivating force for Sack&’s own campaign, now stretching over several decades.