Medieval Cultural Studies

This collection of newly commissioned essays celebrates the sixty-fifth birthday of Professor Stephen Knight in 2005 by paying tribute to his pioneering work in a discipline we call ‘medieval cultural studies’. This is the first book-length study of this relatively new discipline.

 

The contributions are grouped under five main headings: Defining the Field: Medieval Cultural Studies?; Robin Hood; Historical Chaucer; The Cultural Politics of Romance; Cultural Politics/The Politics of Culture. The essays address their subjects – ‘medievalism’; Robin Hood; fabliaux; medievalist crime fiction; medieval romance; Chaucer; contemporary novels with medieval drama settings; medieval London; skaldic poetry; the crusades – in the broad spirit of the kind of work that used to be done at the Birmingham Centre for Cultural Studies, and which is carried on more widely in cultural studies departments in the US, Australia and the rest of Britain.

 

Distinguished contributors from Australia, North America, England, Scotland and Wales bear witness to Stephen Knight’s diverse teaching experiences and research interests, by reflecting on and developing the work of a man who has inaugurated so much innovative thinking about the medieval past and its cultural legacies.