Whose Middle Ages?: Teachable Moments for an Ill-Used Past(Fordham Series in Medieval Studies)

Whose Middle Ages? is an interdisciplinary collection of short, accessible essays intended for the nonspecialist reader and ideal for teaching at an undergraduate level. Each of twenty-two essays takes up an area where digging for meaning in the medieval past has brought something distorted back into the present: in our popular entertainment; in our news, our politics, and our propaganda; and in subtler ways that inform how we think about our histories, our countries, and ourselves. Each author looks to a history that has refused to remain past and uses the tools of the academy to read and re-read familiar stories, objects, symbols, and myths. Whose Middle Ages? gives nonspecialists access to the richness of our historical knowledge while debunking damaging misconceptions about the medieval past. Myths about the medieval period are especially beloved among the globally resurgent far right, from crusading emblems on the shields borne by alt-right demonstrators to the on-screen image of a purely white European populace defended from actors of color by Internet trolls. This collection attacks these myths directly by insisting that readers encounter the relics of the Middle Ages on their own terms. Each essay uses its author’s academic research as a point of entry and takes care to explain how the author knows what she or he knows and what kinds of tools, bodies of evidence, and theoretical lenses allow scholars to write with certainty about elements of the past to a level of detail that might seem unattainable. By demystifying the methods of scholarly inquiry, Whose Middle Ages? serves as an antidote not only to the far right’s errors of fact and interpretation but also to its assault on scholarship and expertise as valid means for the acquisition of knowledge.

Table of Contents:
Introduction David Perry | 1 Part I – Stories The Invisible Peasantry Sandy Bardsley | 14 The Hidden Narratives of Medieval Art Katherine Anne Wilson | 23 Modern Intolerance and the Medieval Crusades Nicholas L. Paul | 34 Blood Libel, a Lie and Its Legacies Magda Teter | 44 Who’s Afraid of Shari‘a Law? Fred M. Donner | 58 How Do We Find Out About Immigrants in Later Medieval England? W. Mark Ormrod | 69 The Middle Ages in the Harlem Renaissance Cord J. Whitaker | 80 Part II – Origins Three Ways of Misreading Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an Ryan Szpiech | 94 The Nazi Middle Ages William J. Diebold | 104 What Would Benedict Do? Lauren Mancia | 116 No, People in the Middle East Haven’t Been Fighting Since the Beginning of Time Stephennie Mulder | 127 Ivory and the Ties That Bind Sarah M. Guérin | 140 Blackness, Whiteness, and the Idea of Race in Medieval European Art Pamela A. Patton | 154 England Between Empire and Nation in “The Battle of Brunanburh” Elizabeth M. Tyler | 166 Whose Spain Is It, Anyway? David A. Wacks | 181 Part III – #Hashtags Modern Knights, Medieval Snails, and Naughty Nuns Marian Bleeke | 196 Charting Sexuality and Stopping Sin Andrew Reeves | 208 “Celtic” Crosses and the Myth of Whiteness Maggie M. Williams | 220 Whitewashing the “Real” Middle Ages in Popular Media Helen Young | 233 Real Men of the Viking Age Will Cerbone | 243 #DeusVult Adam M. Bishop | 256 Own Your Heresy J. Patrick Hornbeck II | 265 Afterword: Medievalists and the Education of Desire Geraldine Heng | 275 Appendixes Appendix I: Possibilities for Teaching—by Genre | 293 Appendix II: Possibilities for Teaching—by Course Theme | 296 List of Contributors | 301

About the Author :
Geraldine Heng (Afterword By) Geraldine Heng is Perceval Professor in English and Comparative Literature, Middle Eastern Studies and Women’s Studies, at the University of Texas in Austin. The author of Empire of Magic: Medieval Romance and the Politics of Cultural Fantasy (Columbia, 2003, 2004, 2012), The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2018), and England and the Jews: How Religion and Violence Created the First Racial State in the West (Cambridge, 2018). She is also the founder and director of the Global Middle Ages Project (www.globalmiddleages.org). She is currently researching and writing Early Globalisms: The Interconnected World, 500– 1500 CE. Andrew Albin (Edited By) Andrew Albin is Assistant Professor of English and Medieval Studies at Fordham University and a member of the faculty of Fordham University’s Center for Medieval Studies. Mary C. Erler (Edited By) Mary C. Erler is Distinguished Professor of English at Fordham University and a member of the faculty of Fordham University’s Center for Medieval Studies. Thomas O'Donnell (Edited By) Thomas O'Donnell is Co-Chair, Comparative Literature, Associate Professor of English and Medieval Studies, and a member of the faculty of Fordham University’s Center for Medieval Studies. Nicholas L. Paul (Edited By) Nicholas L. Paul is Associate Professor of History at Fordham University. He received his MPhil in Medieval History and PhD in History from Cambridge University. His previous publications include To Follow in Their Footsteps: The Crusades and Family Memory in the High Middle Ages (Cornell, 2017) and the coedited collections Remembering the Crusades: Myth, Image, and Identity (Johns Hopkins, 2012), and, with Laura K. Morreale, The French of Outremer: Communities and Communications in the Crusading Mediterranean (Fordham, 2018). Nina Rowe (Edited By) Nina Rowe is Associate Professor of Art History and a member of the faculty of Fordham University’s Center for Medieval Studies. David Perry (Introducer) David Perry—Professor of Medieval History at Dominican University from 2006 to 2017—is a columnist for Pacific Standard Magazine and a freelance journalist covering politics, history, education, and disability rights. His scholarly work focuses on Venice, the Crusades, and the Mediterranean world. He is the author of Sacred Plunder: Venice and the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade (Penn State, 2015).

Review :
This book is timely in a way that won’t get old. It has something for everyone, from professional educators seeking to enliven their classrooms to anyone curious about the origins of popular symbols and phrases. With a plethora of compelling case studies from contemporary culture, religion, art, and politics, there are vital lessons on almost every page. In example after example, the authors show how people shape the Middle Ages to reflect their fears and dreams for themselves and for society. The results range from the amusing to the horrifying, from video games to genocide. Whose Middle Ages? Everyone’s, but not everyone’s in the same way. Whose Middle Ages? offers an ethical and accessible introduction to a historical period often implicated in racist narratives of nationalism and imperialism. A valuable teaching resource, Whose Middle Ages? will inspire necessary discussions about the politics of engaging the past in the present, as it also recovers a Middle Ages that is complex, messy, and belongs to us all. Cross-disciplinary, classroom-ready, and super-timely meditations on medievalisms in our midst, benign and malign, and on medieval self-understanding. Recommended. This is an important book, filled with brief, accessible essays by a who’s who of experts in medieval studies. As a whole, it demonstrates how scholars can open up their field to a wider audience and why those conversations matter, particularly in our own historical moment when history in general—and the medieval past in particular—is weaponized in the service of hate. Whose Middle Ages? should be on every medievalist’s bookshelf and on every class’ reading list.