The Contemporary Medieval in Practice (Spotlights)

Contemporary art can provide medievalists with innovative ways to reframe the past. Meanwhile, medievalists offer contemporary art insights into cultural works of the past that have been reworked in the present.

Speculative and nontraditional, The Contemporary Medieval in Practice adapts the conventional scholarly essay to reflect its interdisciplinary subject. Creative critical writing encourages the introduction of dialogue, poetry, and short essays within scholarly style, and this, the authors argue, makes it an ideal format for exploring innovative pathways from the contemporary to the medieval. Discussing urgent critical discourses and cultural practices, such as the study of the environment and the ethics of understanding bodies, identities, and histories, this short, accessible book focuses on early medieval British culture, or Anglo-Saxon studies, and its relation with, use of, and reworking in contemporary visual, poetic, and material culture after 1950. 
 
 

Clare A. Lees is professor of medieval literature and director of the Institute of English Studies at SOAS University of London.
 
 

Gillian R. Overing is professor of English at Wake Forest University.