Medievalism and the Academy I

Medievalism, the "continuing process of creating the middle ages", engenders formal medieval studies from a wide variety of popular interests in the middle ages. This volume accordingly explores the common ground between artistic and popular constructions of the middle ages and the study of the middle ages within the academy. Essays treat the genesis of medieval studies in early modern antiquarianism; the erection of academic medievalism through persistent, indeed perverse, appeals to heroic medieval manliness and attenuated female spirituality; the current jeopardy of the book (a medieval invention) in the face of technological assault; the politics of the nineteenth-century academy (F.W. Furnival and others); the editorial practice of Sidney Lanier; and the cultural canonization of Chaucer. Contributors: DAVID O. MATTHEWS, STEVE ELLIS, ANTONIA WARD, GRAHAM PARRY, MARGARET CLUNIES ROSS, ANNA SMOL, DAVID ALLAN, MATILDE MATEO, MARYA DEVOTO, ULRIKE WIETHAUS, STEPHEN STEELE, JAMES KENNEDY, WILLIAM CALIN, JESSE D. HURLBUT, JOAN GRENIER-WINTHER, WILLIAM PADEN