Middle Ages in Film and Video Games CFP (6/15/13)

Medieval Studies on Screen CFP for the Medieval Academy in 2014:

CALL FOR PAPERS
2014 ANNUAL MEETING OF THE MEDIEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA
and the Annual Meeting of the Medieval Association of the Pacific, 2014
Hosted by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
EMPIRES AND ENCOUNTERS

The 2014 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America will be held jointly with the Medieval Association of the Pacific on 10–12 April, in Los Angeles at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and hosted by the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Topics.

The Program Committee solicits papers for the sessions listed below. For information about a specific session, contact the session organizer.

16. Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Film and Video Games
Organizer: Anita Obermeier (University of New Mexico)

Complete CFP and details at http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.medievalacademy.org/resource/resmgr/pdfs/call_for_papers_ucla.pdf.

New Book Beowulf on Film

Comics soon from McFarland, though there is a conflict between the title online and the cover art. Further updates as available.


Beowulf on Film:Adaptations and Variations
Nickolas Haydock and E.L. Risden

Print  ISBN: 978-0-7864-6338-1
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-4766-0617-0
photos, bibliography, notes, index
softcover (6 x 9) 2013
Price: $40.00
Not Yet Published, Available Fall/Winter 2013

About the Book

Why did the most read work in English literature go without cinematic adaptation for so long? And why, after so much neglect, did five major film adaptations of the poem appear between 1999 and 2008? This book explores the growing list of films based on or inspired by the Old English epic poem Beowulf, and thus joins the ongoing consideration of film medievalism. If the films lead audiences back to the original, the will discover a work of great cultural, linguistic, and inherent visual power--but will the pervasive influence of cinema affect the future reception of Beowulf? The films derived from it constitute an interesting if yet incomplete body of variants with their own specific social commentary: they inevitably sway not only from the story, but also from the themes and concerns of the original to those more interesting to the filmmakers. The films under consideration here, like all others, respond to the zeitgeist: they measure the pulse of how we are processing inherited notions of heroism in contemporary media, and they teach us more about our own times than about the poem from which they derive.

About the Author

Nickolas Haydock is professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez. In addition to movie medievalism and film, he also writes about medieval Scots literature.

E.L. Risden is a professor of English at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. He has published books and essays on medieval and Renaissance studies as well as poetry and fiction.