The French Journal of Medieval English Studies / Bulletin des Anglicistes Médiévistes (BAM) is seeking submissions for a special issue focusing on neo-medievalism. The papers, written in French or English, should be submitted to Nolwena Monnier by October 30, 2018 (see more information below). Authors who wish to submit a paper are advised to get in touch and submit a title with a brief description of content as soon as convenient.
Neo-medieval studies has become somewhat of a magnificent jungle, a scholarly experimental ground where researchers can revel in an amazing complex of multiple media shaking the boundaries between popular and elite culture; there one finds the Modern Classics – Tolkienian studies and their relation with medieval narrative poetry – intertwined with metamorphic Arthuriana in novels, films, artwork, music and videogames, ranging from historicised fiction (Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord Chronicles or Last Kingdom) to Christopher Lee’s grand incursion into epic metal with his Magic of the Wizard’s Dream or the pseudo-medieval city of Stormwind in World of Warcraft.
Indeed, in his essay about “Le passé sans l’histoire: vers une anthrolopogie culturelle du temps”, Gil Bartholeyns suggests that the past, and especially the medieval past, forms an aesthetic category all its own, apart from history and memory, a category which he calls “le passé sans l’histoire”, or “les usages non historiques du passé.” The “past without history” thus becomes in film-making “un dispositif de création, un champ d’inspiration et d’expression à la fois formelles et idéelles à part entière” (Bartholeyns 51), while role-playing games involving medieval-fantasy worlds are similarly distinct from reminiscence and commemoration or nostalgia, and wholly shaped instead by aspects of medieval material culture and atmosphere: “le ‘Médiéval’ est plus qu’un genre, [c’est] un opérateur ludique” (Bartholeyns 57) – the historical Middle Ages has become a purveyor of non-historical worlds fraught with adventurous and narrative potentialities.
In order to tackle the endless fascination for and exploitation of the Middle Ages, between mimesis, idealisation, caricature and fantasy, this special issue of the Bulletin des Anglicistes Médiévistes (peer-reviewed) will welcome propositions covering:
- Theoretical approaches to neo-medieval studies, such as:
- When does neo-medievalism begin?
- The Middle Ages as a medium for modern representations of otherness and alienation, marginality and minority or minorities.
- Is neo-medieval studies the future of English medieval studies in France?
- Contemporary revivals of medieval works:
- Modern revivals of medieval forms, as in (but not exclusively) contemporary performances of medieval drama in English.
- Modern takes on specific medieval works in retellings or translation, from Michael Morpurgo’s vision of the Arthuriad, to Seamus Heaney’s and Simon Armitage’s appropriations of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
- The non-historical medieval past and the exploitation / distortion of the themes and aesthetics of medieval fantasy in literary works, graphic novels, films, TV series, videogames and musical creation.
- Commemoration and historical reconstitution:
- The reenactment of medieval practices in leisure activities and cultural tourism.
- Medievalising trends in architecture.
- The English Middle Ages on the social networks, or #Chaucer Doth Tweet
The papers, written in English or in French, must be sent before October 30, 2018 to Nolwena Monnier: nolwena.monnier@iut-tlse3.fr. The BAM uses double-blind peer review. The stylesheet to be used may be found on our website: http:/ /amaes.org/publications-de-l-amaes/notre-journal-bam/soumettre-un-article/
Bibliographical suggestions:
- Ashton, Gail, Medieval Afterlives in Contemporary Cultures, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015
- Bartholeyns, Gil , « Le passé sans l’histoire. Vers une anthropologie culturelle du temps », Itinéraires [online], 2010-3 | 2010, online 1 November 2010. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/itineraires/1808
- D’Arcens, Louise, The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism, Cambridge University Press, 2016
- Ferré Vincent, (ed.), Médiévalisme, Modernité du Moyen Âge, Itinéraires Littérature, textes, culturesn°3, 2010, [online]. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/itineraires/1774
- Gally, Michèle et Ferré, Vincent, « Médiévistes et modernistes face au médiéval », Perspectives médiévales[online], 35 | 2014, online 01 january 2014. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/peme/5761
- Kears Carl and Paz James, Medieval Science Fiction, Boydell and Brewer, 2016
- Matthews, David, Medievalism: A Critical History, Boydell and Brewer, 2015
- Umland, Rebecca, Outlaw Heroes as Liminal Figures of Film and Television, Mc Farland 2016
- Utz, Richard, Medievalism: A Manifesto, Arc Humanities Press, 2017
