Lee on Cold War Comics and Films

With apologies for the multiple cross-postings:

Lee, Peter W. “Red Days, Black Knights: Medieval-themed Comic Books in American Containment Culture.”Corporate Medievalism II. Ed. Karl Fugelso. Studies in Medievalism 22. Cambridge, Eng.: D. S. Brewer-Boydell & Brewer, 2013. 181-200. Print.

Haydock on Beowulf in SiM

From the latest volume of Studies in Medievalism:


Haydock, Nickolas. “Film Theory, the Sister Arts Tradition, and the Cinematic Beowulf.” Corporate Medievalism II. Ed. Karl Fugelso. Studies in Medievalism 22. Cambridge, Eng.: D. S. Brewer-Boydell & Brewer, 2013. 153-80. Print.

Coming Soon: Digital Gaming Re-imagines the Middle Ages

One last post for the night:


Digital Gaming Re-imagines the Middle Ages 
Edited by Daniel T. Kline 

Series: Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture

To Be Published July 22nd 2013 by Routledge

Hardback: $125.00 978-0-415-63091-7
Available for pre-order


Digital gaming’s cultural significance is often minimized much in the same way that the Middle Ages are discounted as the backward and childish precursor to the modern period. Digital Gaming Reimagines the Middle Ages challenges both perceptions by examining how the Middle Ages have persisted into the contemporary world via digital games as well as analyzing how digital gaming translates, adapts, and remediates medieval stories, themes, characters, and tropes in interactive electronic environments. At the same time, the Middle Ages are reinterpreted according to contemporary concerns and conflicts, in all their complexity. Rather than a distinct time in the past, the Middle Ages form a space in which theory and narrative, gaming and textuality, identity and society are remediated and reimagined. Together, the essays demonstrate that while having its roots firmly in narrative traditions, neomedieval gaming—where neomedievalism no longer negotiates with any reality beyond itself and other medievalisms—creates cultural palimpsests, multiply-layered trans-temporal artifacts. Digital Gaming Re-imagines the Middle Ages demonstrates that the medieval is more than just a stockpile of historically static facts but is a living, subversive presence in contemporary culture.


Introduction: "All Your History Are Belong to Us": Digital Gaming Re-imagines the Middle Ages
Daniel T. Kline


Part 1: Prehistory of Medieval Gaming

1. The Right to Dream of the Middle Ages: Simulating the Medieval in Tabletop RPGs
William J. White


Part 2: Gaming Re-imagines Medieval Traditions

2. "Best and Only Bulwark": How Epic Narrative Redeems Beowulf the Game
Candace Barrington and Timothy English

3. Systematizing Culture in Medievalism: Geography, Dynasty, Culture, and Imperialism in Crusader Kings: Deus Vult 
Jason Pitruzzello

4. The Portrayal of Medieval Warfare in Medieval: Total War and Medieval 2: Total War
Greg Fedorenko

5. Gabriel Knight: A Twentieth-Century Chivalric Romance Hero
Angela Tenga


Part 3: Case Study 1 – World of Warcraft

6. Coloring Tension: Medieval and Contemporary Concepts in Classifying and Using Digital Objects in World of Warcraft 
Elysse T. Meredith

7. Sir Thomas Malory and the Death Knights of New Avalon: Imagining Medieval Identities in World of Warcraft 
Kristen Noone and Jennifer Kavetsky

8. Accumulating Histories: A Social Practice Approach to Medievalism in High Fantasy MMORPGs
Jennifer C. Stone, Peter Kudenov, and Teresa Combs

9. "Awesome Cleavage": The Genred Body in World of Warcraft 
Kim Wilkins


Part 4: Case Study 2 – Dante's Inferno, The Game

10. The Game's Two Bodies, or the Fate of Figura in Dante's Inferno 
 Bruno Lessard

11. Courtly e-Violence, Digital Play: Adapting Medieval Courtly Masculinities in Dante’s Inferno 
Oliver Chadwick

12. Shades of Dante: Virtual Bodies in Dante's Inferno 
Timothy J. Welsh and John T. Sebastian

13. The Middle Ages in the Depths of Hell: Pedagogical Possibility and the Past in Dante's Inferno 
Angela Jane Weisl and Kevin J. Stevens


Part 5: Theoretical and Representational Issues in Medieval Gaming

14. We Will Travel by Map: Maps as Narrative Spaces in Videogames and Medieval Texts
Thomas Rowland

15. Author, Text, and Medievalism in The Elder Scrolls 
Michelle DiPietro

16. Technophilia and Technophobia in Online Medieval Fantasy Games
Nick Webber

17. The Consolation of Paranoia: Conspiracy, Epistemology, and the Templars in Assassin's Creed, Deus Ex, and Dragon Age 
Harry J. Brown


Part 6: Sociality and Social Media in Medieval Gaming

18. Casual Medieval Games, Interactivity, and Social Play in Social Network and Mobile Applications
Serina Patterson

Wood's The Medieval Filmscape

Coming this December from McFarland. Wood is no stranger to Medieval Studies on screen, but the idea that this is "an informal attempt at defining the genre" does worry me a bit (not to mention the fact that medievalism on film is transgeneric). More to follow as available.


The Medieval Filmscape:Reflections of Fear and Desire in a Cinematic Mirror
William F. Woods 

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-4651-3
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-4766-1341-3
ca. 20 photos, filmography, notes, bibliography, index
softcover (6 x 9) 2013
Price: $40.00
Not Yet Published, Available Fall/Winter 2013

About the Book

This book is an informal attempt at defining the genre of medieval film by describing its features and analyzing its effects and their significance, there being few works presently available that work toward such definition. There are three parts: the introduction enters the medieval film world, describing its typical features and showing how they create a convincing sense of its time; three short chapters discuss authenticity, simplicity and spectacle--the roots of film medievalism; and six longer chapters comment on individual films. Works are discussed that extend the reach of the genre, such as Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne D’Arc with its emotional range, or Bergman’s Seventh Seal, which creates a universal symbolism. In short, the author describes what goes into a medieval film and how it affects its audience, while offering suggestions about why its themes are meaningful to us.

About the Author

William F. Woods is the M.V. Hughes Professor of English at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas. He lives in Wichita.

Beowulf on Film Update

McFarland has recently updated the cover art for Haydock and Risden's Beowulf on Film Adaptations and Variations to mach its title. Still no details on the contents. 

CFP Women and Community in the Ancien Régime: Traditional and New Media (10/1/13)

Came across the following on the Medieval Academy blog, and it seems worth re-posting. Note specific request for approaches using film (and, presumably, other representations of the medieval on screens).

The Fourth International MARGOT Conference
June 18-20, 2014
Barnard College, New York City

Women and Community in the Ancien Régime: Traditional and New Media

Scholarly Focus

This three-day conference will feature research and teaching approaches that explore how women participated in and contributed to different kinds of community in medieval and early modern Europe.  Conference sessions will feature presentations based on texts and images in traditional manuscript and print format, as well as work that employs new technology and media projects. The conference will be interdisciplinary, and will consider the function and importance of female communities in the natural and social sciences, religion, literature, history, music and fine arts.

Presentation topics may explore women in:

• Medical communities; midwifery
• Religious communities and non-orthodox or heretical groups
• Salons and académies
• Women and the Republic of Letters
• Epistolary communities
• Literary circles
• Artists’ and performing artists’ communities
• Guilds
• Oral communities; storytelling
• Print and Manuscript format
• Digital resources of all kinds
• Online publication of texts and images
• Database design and creation
• Material culture and artifacts
• Film

Resources and approaches used may include:

This conference is co-sponsored by the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

PROCEDURE FOR SUBMISSION OF PROPOSAL:

We welcome three types of submissions:

1. Demonstrations/showcasing of existing projects which will include discussion of their creation and implementation for research and/or teaching
2. Abstracts for regular paper presentations
3. Proposals for entire sessions (including the names, titles, and abstracts of three/four presenters)

Regular papers will last for 20 minutes, and will be followed by 10 minutes of discussion. Project demonstrations will last for 30 minutes followed by 15 minutes of discussion. We ask participants to include the following information in their proposal:

1. Paper or Session title
2. Session type – Regular or Project Demonstration
3. 250 word abstract
4. Contact information and bio paragraph

The Committee will look at all the proposals and their compatibility with the sessions that are planned. As far as possible, we will try to avoid parallel sessions.
The language of the Colloquium will be English.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION:

The deadline for submitting your proposal is October 1, 2013.
Please submit proposals by e-mail to the conference committee:
Prof. Laurie Postlewate: lpostlew@barnard.edu.
Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by October 15, 2013. Information about the conference, including registration, accommodation at negotiated favourable rates, will be provided early in 2014. We will periodically update information here.
We look forward to your participation,

The Conference Committee:

• Christine McWebb (University of Waterloo)
• Laurie Postlewate (Barnard College, Columbia University)
• Catherine Dubeau (University of Waterloo)

For more information, please see http://margot.uwaterloo.ca/conference-2014/