Medievalism: A Manifesto (Past Imperfect)

Medievalism: A Manifesto (Past Imperfect)

Since the inclusion of medieval studies in the modern academy, professional scholars have insisted on distinguishing their work from extra-academic lovers of medieval culture. Richard Utz analyzes the semantic, institutional, and sociopolitical history of the relationship between medieval studies and medievalism. He provides a survey of how scholars’ exteriorization of amateur interest in the medieval past narrowed the epistemological range of medieval scholarship and how reception studies, feminism, and postmodernism gradually expanded modern pastist approaches to the Middle Ages. Utz advances specific examples for reconnecting investigating scholarly subjects with their subjects of investigation, and he challenges scholars to make a conscious effort to engage in public scholarship and explore inclusive gestures toward the contributions non-academic lovers of the Middle Ages can offer. His manifesto advocates an active integration of academic medievalists’ work within the many other equally valuable artistic and sociopolitical partner contexts of reading the medieval past. "Utz is the scholar/teacher as rabble rouser, in the very best sense of the term - though some of the rabble are his own colleagues in the academy. He argues for a fresh approach to a new topic in a way that embraces not just the academy but also larger audiences with their own distinctive views of and responses to what we call the medieval." - Kevin J. Harty, La Salle University (ARC Humanities Press Reviewer) "Utz is the scholar/teacher as rabble rouser, in the very best sense of the term―though some of the rabble are his own colleagues in the academy. He argues for a fresh approach to a new topic in a way that embraces not just the academy but also larger audiences with their own distinctive views of and responses to what we call the medieval." -- Kevin J. Harty "Q&A with Richard Utz on Medievalism: A Manifesto "Richard Utz is Chair and Professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology and President of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism. He is the author of  Literarischer Nominalismus im Spätmittelalter  (1990) and  Chaucer and the Discourse of German Philology  (2002), and coeditor of  Medievalism in the Modern World  (with Tom Shippey, 1998) and of  Medievalism: Key Critical Terms  (with Elizabeth Emery, 2014). He is also the founding editor of  Medievally Speaking , an open access review journal encouraging critical engagement with all manifestations of medieval culture in postmedieval times.   There are many recent books about medievalism. What's different about yours? The study of how the Middle Ages has been reinvented, repurposed, and reenacted in postmedieval times has become an established academic subject over the last 25 years. However, most book-length studies investigate one kind or genre of medievalism or the biography of a specific scholar: Louise D'Arcens'  Comic Medievalism  (2014), for example, examines the role of humour in the reception of medieval culture across several centuries; Tison Pugh's  Queer Chivalry  (2013) explores the history of white masculinity in Southern U.S. Literature; and Michelle Warren's  Creole Medievalism  (2013) reveals editor and warrior scholar Joseph Bédier's pro-colonial medievalist work. My own book wants to present a meta-perspective on the field of medievalism studies. Specifically, I would like to encourage colleagues to acknowledge, perhaps even embrace, the subjective and affective origins of our interest in the medieval past. Therefore, I took the unusual step of having my own parents featured on the book's cover. Their and my own direct involvement in medievalist reenactment, games, and education are among the affective forces that have shaped many of my interests as a scholar. Aren't you worried about being accused of being a mere amateur or dilettante by embracing the personal, affective, and subjective? No, quite the opposite! I think it's an epistemological fallacy to believe that a scholar, the investigating subject, needs to be kept strictly separate from the scholar's research, the subject under investigation. I believe with Norman Cantor ( Inventing the Middle Ages , 1993) that all scholarship is, in the end, a form of autobiography and that the multitude of scholarly endeavors to recuperate the Middle Ages has only resulted in ever so many (subjective) reinventions of that time period. In the end, an amateur (from Latin  amare , to love) or a dilettante (from Italian  dilettare , to delight) is not so different from a scholar of the Middle Ages, who has simply sublimated his or her love for the medieval past into formal academic practices like editing, translation, or criticism. In my book I want to exemplify how a scholar's open and conscious inclusion of personal connections will enhance, not hinder, our understanding of the medieval past. How do you manage to infuse your research with your