Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction: Living Medieval Gail Ashton I: True to Life: in the performance 1.Spamalot: Lovingly Ripping Off / Ripping On the Establishment Jeff Massey and Brian Cogan 2. Medievalisms in Contemporary Opera Robert Sturges 3. Medieval religious plays in England: afterlives and new lives through performance Margaret Rogerson 4. Staging Chaucer: Mike Poulton and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales Sarah Peverley 5. You Can’t Do This to Disney! Popular Medievalisms in the Classroom Meriem Pagès 6. Medieval Times: Tournaments and Jousting in Twenty-first Century North America Elizabeth Emery II: To Turn You On: the pleasures of texts- film, TV, gaming 7. From Anglo-Saxon to Angelina: Adapting Beowulf for Film Stewart Brookes 8. Contemporary Neomedieval Digital Gaming: An Overview of Genres Daniel T. Kline 9. Survey of 21st ‘Medieval’ Film Lesley Coote 10. ‘Camelot must come before all else’: Fantasy and family in the BBC Merlin Philippa Semper 11. Electronic Tolkien: Characterization in Film and Video Games Carol L. Robinson 12. Chaucer in a (Television) Box: The BBC Canterbury Tales (2003) Kathleen Coyne Kelly III: More Than This: reimagings and reappropriations 13. Global Chaucers Candace Barrington and Jonathan Hsy 14. Silence in the Library?—Medievalist Poetry Shout-Out Gail Ashton 15. Coming of Age in the Middle Ages: The Quest for Identity in Medieval Novels for Young Adults Angela Jane Weisl 16. Australian Medievalism: Time and Paradox Louise D’Arcens 17. Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe as Contemporary Cult Figures Fiona Tolhurst 18. Conjuring the Ghosts of Camelot: Tintagel and the Medievalism of Heritage Tourism Laurie A. Finke and Susan Aronstein IV: Avalon:icons and artefacts 19. Medievalism and Heroism in Arthurian Literature for Young People Ann F. Howey 20. New Age and Neopagan Medievalisms Karolyn Kinane 21. 21st-Century Templar Cory James Rushton 22. Malory’s Afterlives in Contemporary Culture Raluca L. Radulescu 23. ‘We Are Robin Hood’: The Outlaw Tradition in Contemporary Popular Culture Rob Gossedge 24. Harry Potter and Medievalism Renée Ward V: The Space Between: new media and fandom 25. Social Networking, Participatory Culture, and the Fandom World of Harry Potter Amanda K. Allen 26. ‘Nightcrawler’s Inferno’ and other Hellish Tales: Comics Adaptations of Dante Jason Tondro 27. From Camelot to Kaamelott: The Arthurian Legend in British, American and French Comics Daniel Nastali 28. Afterlives of Medieval Manuscripts Wendy Scase 29. Medieval Memes Maggie M. Williams and Lauren C. Razzore Notes on Contributors Select Bibliography Index

Promotional Information

Covering a range of media from film and TV to games, blogs and merchandise, this is a comprehensive handbook to medieval appropriations in contemporary culture.

About the Author

Gail Ashton is an academic, writer and poet with research and publishing interests in medieval literature, popular culture, and poetry. Recent books include Medieval Afterlives in Popular Culture (2012), co-edited with Daniel T. Kline, 2012; Geoffrey Chaucer: a life (2011); Medieval Romance in Context (2010); and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (2007).

Reviews

Medieval Afterlives in Contemporary Culture represents a second masterful effort of editor Gail Ashton to grow the literature surrounding ‘medievalisms’ ... This makes for a serious, but enjoyable and accessible read for those both within and beyond academia.
*Cerae*

This substantial collection comprises 29 essays on medieval culture in the present world … In the volume's five sections, contributors examine performative medievalisms, the Middle Ages as a media phenomenon, reimagining and reappropriating the medieval, cultural icons and artifacts, and networking and fan culture. There is something for everyone interested in medievalism, and the vast majority of the essays engage in new texts, spaces, and concepts. Things Arthurian are the focus of a number of essays, and Robin Hood is well represented. The most engaging essays are those that focus on the spread of the medieval to physical sites: Elizabeth Emery’s piece on medieval times in North America, Louise D’Arcens's contribution on Australian medievalisms, and Laurie Finke and Susan Aronstein’s interaction with Tintagel as a locus of tourism and national heritage. For this reader, the most significant contribution to this volume is Wendy Scase’s essay on medieval manuscripts and the benefits and problems of digitization. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above.
*CHOICE*

There is something for everyone interested in medievalism in this volume, and the many excellent contributions examine new cultural spaces in which medievalist tropes play out ... this book offers a comprehensive discussion of this rapidly expanding topic and highlights a number of new directions which will no doubt encourage further work by specialists and non-specialists alike.
*Folklore*