Description:
This book examines feminist textual and cinematic engagements with the idea of the Middle Ages in the 19th and 20th centuries, arguing that the idea of the medieval past is central to the work of novelists and directors interested in embodiment and vulnerability.
Brief description:
Usha Vishnuvajjala is an Assistant Professor of English at SUNY-New Paltz. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and edited collections and she recently co-edited the volume Women's Friendship in Medieval Literature (2022) with Karma Lochrie
Review Quotes:
The book's focus on medievalism in the writings of widely taught modern authors, as well as in visual media of the late twentieth century, means that it may be at least as useful to literary scholars working on other periods as it is to medievalists. This, in my view, is as valuable as it is unusual, demonstrating that medieval studies is neither stagnant nor insular. [...] The potential uses of this volume are many. I can envision it being used in classes on, for instance, women's writing, or on medievalism in literature, or on medieval bodies, or on the history of emotions. It invites readers into conversation with the medieval and with medievalisms, and I hope it will be taken up by feminist scholars outside the broad field of medieval studies as well as within it.
--Lucy C. Barnhouse