The worlds of Jim Henson offer much to delight medievalists, including a spirited rendition of "In the Navy" (from season five of The Muppet Show) with Muppet Viking-pigs attacking (and, in the end, being repelled from) a medieval seaside community.
There are multiple version of the short online including the following:
So far, only seasons one, two, and three of The Muppet Show are available for home video. Hopefully Disney will release the remaining seasons soon.
Friday, April 6, 2018
Recent Book: Swashbucklers: The Costume Adventure Series
Swashbucklers: The Costume Adventure Series
http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719088810/
By James Chapman
Book Information
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7190-8881-0
Pages: 296
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Price: £70.00
Published Date: July 2015
BIC Category: Film and Media, Television, Radio, Films, cinema, PERFORMING ARTS / Television / History & Criticism, The arts / Film, TV & radio
Available for North and South America through Oxford University Press Academic at https://global.oup.com/academic/product/swashbucklers-9780719088810?cc=us&lang=en&#. The US edition is priced currently at $110.
Description
Swashbucklers is the first study of one of the most popular and enduring genres in television history - the costume adventure series. It maps the history of swashbuckling television from its origins in the 1950s to the present. It places the various series in their historical and institutional contexts and also analyses how the form and style of the genre has changed over time. And it includes case studies of major swashbuckling series including The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Buccaneers, Ivanhoe, William Tell, Zorro, Arthur of the Britons, Dick Turpin, Robin of Sherwood, Sharpe, Hornblower, The Count of Monte Cristo and the recent BBC co-production of The Three Musketeers.
Oxford University Press offers the following extended description at their site:
Swashbucklers is the first study of one of the most popular and enduring genres in television history - the costume adventure series.
James Chapman explores the history of swashbuckling television from its origins in the 1950s to the present day. He maps the major production cycles of the Anglophone swashbuckler both in Britain and in the United States and places the genre in its historical, cultural and institutional contexts. He shows how the success of The Adventures of Robin Hood in the 1950s established a template for a genre that has been one of the most successful of British television exports. And he considers how America responded to this 'British invasion' with its own swashbuckling heroes such as Zorro.
Chapman also analyses the cultural politics of the swashbuckler, considering how it has been a vehicle for the representation of ideologies of class, gender and nationhood. While some swashbucklers have promoted consensual politics, others such as Dick Turpin and Robin of Sherwood have presented us with heroes on the margins of society who challenge its inequities and injustices. The relationship of the televisions swashbuckler to the founding myths of the genre is discussed, along with how the genre has responded to the changing cultural and ideological contexts in which it is produced. What emerges is a picture of a genre that has proved remarkably flexible in adapting its form and style to match the popular tastes of audiences.
Swashbucklers is intended for students and teachers of popular television drama as well as for adventure-lovers everywhere.
Contents
Introduction
1. Exporting Englishness
2. Fantasy factories
3. Revisionist revivals
4. Rebels with a cause
5. Heritage heroes
6. Millennial mavericks
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Author
James Chapman is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Leicester
New Book: The Legacy of Courtly Literature: From Medieval to Contemporary Culture
The Legacy of Courtly Literature: From Medieval to Contemporary Culture
https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783319607283
Editors: Nelson-Campbell, Deborah, Cholakian, Rouben (Eds.)
Series Title: Arthurian and Courtly Cultures
Copyright: 2017
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Hardcover
$119.99 (listprice) price for USA (ISBN978-3-319-60728-3)
eBook
$89.00 (listprice) price for USA (ISBN978-3-319-60729-0)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-60729-0
Number of Pages: XII, 234
Number of Illustrations and Tables: 9 b/w illustrations
- Covers a broad range of topics related to courtly literature including Shakespeare, the Harry Potter series, and the Japanese Imperial Court
- Traces the long established tradition of courtly literature from its original medieval roots to its influence on today’s literary and artistic culture
- Assembles the foremost experts on medieval courtly literature
About this book:
This fascinating volume examines the enduring influence of courtly tradition and courtly love, particularly in contemporary popular culture. The ten chapters explore topics including the impact of the medieval troubadour in modern love songs, the legacy of figures such as Tristan, Iseult, Lancelot, Guinevere, and Merlin in modern film and literature, and more generally, how courtly and chivalric conceptions of love have shaped the Western world’s conception of love, loyalty, honor, and adultery throughout history and to this day.
Table of Contents:
Introduction / Rouben Cholakian and Deborah Nelson-Campbell --
The Arthurian knight remythified Ovidian: the failures of courtly love in three late medieval glosses / Jane Chance --
Shakespeare's The merry wives of Windsor and the fabliau / Carol F. Heffernan --
Villon's dreams of the courtly / Rupert T. Pickens --
"You make me want to be a better man": courtly values revived in modern film / Raymond J. Cormier --
From Marie de France to J.K. Rowling: the weasel / Carol Dover --
Courtly literature: "yesterday" is today / Beverly J. Evans --
Variations on a transcultural phenomenon: the potion scene in four film versions of the legend of Tristan and Iseult / Joan Tasker Grimbert --
The musical incongruities of time travel in Arthurian film / John Haines --
The fool and the wise man: the legacy of the two Merlins in modern culture / Natalia I. Petrovskaia --
A legacy of Japanese courtly literature: the Imperial New Year Poetry Recitation Party / Yuko Tagaya --
Bibliography --
Index.
About the editors:
Deborah Nelson-Campbell is Professor of French Studies at Rice University, USA.
Rouben Cholakian is Professor Emeritus of French at Hamilton College, USA.
Wednesday, April 4, 2018
Update: Medievalism in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones
Medievalism in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones
https://boydellandbrewer.com/medievalism-in-i-a-song-of-ice-and-fire-i-and-i-game-of-thrones-i-hb.html
Shiloh Carroll
March 2018
214 pages
21.6x13.8 cm
Medievalism
ISBN: 9781843844846
Format: Hardback
D.S.Brewer
Game of Thrones is famously inspired by the Middle Ages - but how "authentic" is the world it presents? This volume offers different angles to the question.
One of the biggest attractions of George R.R. Martin's high fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, and by extension its HBO television adaptation, Game of Thrones, is its claim to historical realism. The author, the directors and producers of the adaptation, and indeed the fans of the books and show, all lay claim to Westeros, its setting, as representative of an authentic medieval world. But how true are these claims? Is it possible to faithfully represent a time so far removed from our own in time and culture? And what does an authentic medieval fantasy world look like?
This book explores Martin's and HBO's approaches to and beliefs about the Middle Ages and how those beliefs fall into traditional medievalist and fantastic literary patterns. Examining both books and programme from a range of critical approaches - medievalism theory, gender theory, queer theory, postcolonial theory, and race theory - Dr Carroll analyzes how the drive for historical realism affects the books' and show's treatment of men, women, people of colour, sexuality, and imperialism, as well as how the author and showrunners discuss these effects outside the texts themselves.
An e-book version of this title is available (9781787441941), to libraries through a number of trusted suppliers. See here for a full list of our partners.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Martin and Medievalist Fantasy
Chivalric Romance and Anti-Romance
Masculinity, Femininity, and Gender Relations
Sex and Sexuality
Postcolonialism, Slavery, and the Great White Hope
Adaptation and Reception
Afterword
Bibliography
About the Author:
Shiloh Carroll teaches in the writing center at Tennessee State University.
Coming Soon: Derek Jarman's Medieval Modern
Derek Jarman's Medieval Modern
https://boydellandbrewer.com/derek-jarman-s-medieval-modern-hb.html
Robert Mills
April 2018
16 colour, 68 black and white illustrations
286 pages
23.4x15.6 cm
Medievalism
ISBN: 9781843844938
Format: Hardback
D.S.Brewer
First exploration of Jarman's engagement with the medieval, revealing its importance to his work.
The artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman (1942-1994) had a lifelong appreciation of medieval culture. But with the possible exception of Edward II, Jarman's films have not been identified to date as making a major contribution to the depiction of the Middle Ages in cinema.
This book is the first to uncover a rich seam of medievalism in Jarman's art. Taking in major features such as Caravaggio, The Garden and The Last of England, as well as some of the unrealised screenplays and short experimental films, the book proposes an expanded definition of medieval film that includes not just works set in or about the Middle Ages, but also projects inspired more broadly by the period. It considers Jarman's engagement with Anglo-Saxon poetry (notably The Wanderer); with works by fourteenth-century poets such as Chaucer, Dante and Langland; with saints and mystics from Joan of Arc to Julian of Norwich; and with numerous paintings, buildings and objects from this so-called "middle" time.
Organised around several key themes - periodisation, anachronism, ruins and wandering - the book also asks what happens when (with Jarman, but also more broadly) we think the categories "medieval" and "modern" together. As such, it will be of interest to film scholars, art historians and medievalists of all stripes who wish to rattle the temporal cages of their fields.
An e-book version of this title is available (9781787442122), to libraries through a number of trusted suppliers. See here for a full list of our partners.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Derek Jarman Gets Medieval
Always Contemporary
A Life in Ruins
The Wandering Jarman
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Filmography
About the Author:
Robert Mills is Professor of Medieval Studies at University College London.
Now Available: Chivalry in Westeros: The Knightly Code of A Song of Ice and Fire
Chivalry in Westeros:The Knightly Code of A Song of Ice and Fire
https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/chivalry-in-westeros/
Carol Parrish Jamison
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 217
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2018
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7005-8
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3316-9
Imprint: McFarland
$35.00
About the Book:
George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire has sparked a renewed interest in things medieval. The pseudo-historical world of Westeros delights casual fans while offering a rich new perspective for medievalists and scholars.
This study explores how Martin crafts a chivalric code that intersects with and illuminates well known medieval texts, including both romance and heroic epics. Through characters such as Brienne of Tarth, Sandor Clegane and Jaime Lannister, Martin variously challenges, upholds and deconstructs chivalry as depicted in the literature of the Middle Ages.
Table of Contents:
Preface 1
One • An Introduction to Westerosi Chivalry 7
Two • Chivalry in Oral Tradition 25
Three • Chivalry in Written Tradition 44
Four • Franchise 62
Five • Loyalty 89
Six • Prowess 114
Seven • Vengeance 141
Eight • Peace Weaving 160
Conclusions: Teaching Westeros 182
Chapter Notes 191
Bibliography 201
Index 207
About the Author:
Carol Parrish Jamison is a professor of English at Georgia Southern University, Armstrong Campus, in Savannah, Georgia. She specializes in medieval literature, linguistics, and medievalism.
Out Now: The New Peplum: Essays on Sword and Sandal Films and Television Programs Since the 1990s
The New Peplum: Essays on Sword and Sandal Films and Television Programs Since the 1990s
https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-new-peplum/
Edited by Nicholas Diak
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 242
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2018
pISBN: 978-1-4766-6762-1
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3150-9
Imprint: McFarland
$39.95
About the Book:
Peplum or “sword-and-sandal” films—an Italian genre of the late 1950s through the 1960s—featured ancient Greek, Roman and Biblical stories with gladiators, mythological monsters and legendary quests. The new wave of historic epics, known as neo-pepla, is distinctly different, embracing new technologies and storytelling techniques to create an immersive experience unattainable in the earlier films.
This collection of new essays explores the neo-peplum phenomenon through a range of topics, including comic book adaptations like Hercules, the expansion of genre boundaries in Jupiter Ascending and John Carter, depictions of Romans and slaves in Spartacus, and The Eagle and Centurion as metaphors for America’s involvement in the Iraq War.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments vi
Foreword (David R. Coon) 1
Introduction (Nicholas Diak) 4
Part One: Crossing the Rubicon: Expanding the Neo-Peplum Boundaries
Adapting to New Spaces: Swords and Planets and the Neo-Peplum (Paul Johnson) 21
Hercules: Transmedia Superhero Mythology (Djoymi Baker) 44
From Crowds to Swarms: Movement and Bodies in Neo-Peplum Films (Kevin M. Flanagan) 63
Part Two: Wisdom from the Gods: Mythological Adaptations
There Are No Boundaries for Our Boats: Vikings and the Westernization of the Norse Saga (Steve Nash) 79
Sounds of Swords and Sandals: Music in Neo-Peplum BBC Television Docudramas (Nick Poulakis) 95
Hercules, Xena and Genre: The Methodology Behind the Mashup (Valerie Estelle Frankel) 115
Part Three: The “Glory” of Rome: Depictions of the Empire
Male Nudity, Violence and the Disruption of Voyeuristic Pleasure in Starz’s Spartacus (Hannah Mueller) 135
Sex, Lies and Denarii: Roman Depravity and Oppression in Starz’s Spartacus (Jerry B. Pierce) 155
In the Green Zone with the Ninth Legion: The Post-Iraq Roman Film (Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.) 178
Part Four: Sculpted in Marble: Gender and Representation
Laughing at the Body: The Imitation of Masculinity in Peplum Parody Films (Tatiana Prorokova) 195
Queering the Quest: Neo-Peplum and the Neo-Femme in Xena: Warrior Princess (Haydee Smith) 208
Afterword (Steven L. Sears) 219
About the Contributors 223
Index 225
About the Editor:
Nicholas Diak is a pop culture scholar specializing in Italian spy films, post-industrial and synthwave music, and the works of H.P. Lovecraft. He has contributed essays, editorials and reviews to a variety of books, journals, and pop culture websites. He lives in Orange, California.
New Book: The Middle Ages in Popular Imagination: Memory, Film and Medievalism
The Middle Ages in Popular Imagination: Memory, Film and Medievalism
http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/Humanities/History/History-earliest-times-to-present-day/Early-history-c-500-to-c-14501500/Medieval-history/The-Middle-Ages-in-Popular-Imagination-Memory-Film-and-Medievalism
Paul Sturtevant
Imprint: I.B.Tauris
Publisher: I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd.
Series: Library of Medieval Studies
Hardback | In Stock | £75.00
Hardback | Not Yet Published | $110.00
Hardback
ISBN: 9781788311397
Publication Date: 28 Feb 2018
Number of Pages: 336
Height: 216
Width: 138
Illustrations: 20 black and white integrated illustrations
Description:
It is often assumed that those outside of academia know
very little about the Middle Ages. But the truth is not so simple.
Non-specialists in fact learn a great deal from the myriad medievalisms -
post-medieval imaginings of the medieval world - that pervade our
everyday culture. These, like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones,
offer compelling, if not necessarily accurate, visions of the medieval
world. And more, they have an impact on the popular imagination,
particularly since there are new medievalisms constantly being
developed, synthesised and remade.
But what does the public really know? How do the conflicting medievalisms they consume contribute to their knowledge? And why is this important?
In this book, the first evidence-based exploration of the wider public's understanding of the Middle Ages, Paul B. Sturtevant adapts sociological methods to answer these important questions. Based on extensive focus groups, the book details the ways - both formal and informal - that people learn about the medieval past and the many other ways that this informs, and even distorts, our present. In the process, Sturtevant also sheds light, in more general terms, onto the ways non-specialists learn about the past, and why understanding this is so important. The Middle Ages in Popular Imagination will be of interest to anyone working on medieval studies, medievalism, memory studies, medieval film studies, informal learning or public history.
But what does the public really know? How do the conflicting medievalisms they consume contribute to their knowledge? And why is this important?
In this book, the first evidence-based exploration of the wider public's understanding of the Middle Ages, Paul B. Sturtevant adapts sociological methods to answer these important questions. Based on extensive focus groups, the book details the ways - both formal and informal - that people learn about the medieval past and the many other ways that this informs, and even distorts, our present. In the process, Sturtevant also sheds light, in more general terms, onto the ways non-specialists learn about the past, and why understanding this is so important. The Middle Ages in Popular Imagination will be of interest to anyone working on medieval studies, medievalism, memory studies, medieval film studies, informal learning or public history.
Author Info:
Paul B. Sturtevant is an audience research specialist at the Smithsonian
Institution, in Washington, DC. He completed his PhD at the Institute
for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds. He is also the founder
and Editor-in-Chief of the very popular collaborative history blog 'The
Public Medievalist' (http://www.publicmedievalist.com/).
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