We are dedicated to exploring the Middle Ages outside the Middle Ages. From chess to Chaucer, the Crusades to the Vikings, and the parliament to the university, the legacy of the Middle Ages can be found almost everywhere in contemporary institutions and culture. We interrogate how medievalisms are produced discursively and how the fluid referent of the “medieval” is deployed across cultures and mediums for aesthetic and ideological purposes. From pop culture to high theory, the medieval as “other” produces periodizations that lay the foundations of cultural and institutional identities.
Using the Middle Ages as a nexus, we aim to foster a dialogue between classicists, medievalists, and modernists. From a fundamentally interdisciplinary standpoint, we are committed to rethinking the divisions within and between departments based on these periodizations. Our biweekly reading group focuses on medievalism in many contexts: film, literature, and theory; reenactments, performances, and festivals; religion, politics, and law; poetry, music, and visual arts; tourism, Eurocentrism, and globalization. The "medieval" forms the object, not the subject, of our study.
If you have any questions, please contact the group's coordinators:
- Marcos Garcia (Dept. of English): marcosgarcia@berkeley.edu
- Kenneth Fockele (Dept. of German): kfockele@berkeley.edu
