The Diverse Pedagogies of Medievalism

The Diverse Pedagogies of Medievalism Roundtable

From the Middle Ages in the Modern World 2015 Conference, held at the University of Lincoln, on June 30, 2015

Participants in the Roundtable:

• Kim Wilkins, University of Queensland, “The Creative Value of the Middle Ages.”
• Helen Young, University of Sydney, “Teaching Racial Literacy through Medievalist Video Games.”
• Molly Brown, University of Pretoria, “Shaka, She and Chivalry: Teaching Medievalism on the Veldt.”
• Dorothy Kim, Vassar College, “Gender, Medieval Studies, and Critical Race Theory.”
• Jonathan Hsy, George Washington University, “Teaching via Translation: Accessing the Wife of Bath via Global Englishes.”
• Carol Robinson, Kent State University Trumbull, “I AM the Wife of Bath, Too!”

Livestreamed through Google Hangouts, this roundtable explored some of the many pedagogies of medievalism in the modern academy. To what purposes is medievalism taught, and how? Using what texts and in what contexts? The panel is particularly interested in the ways that teaching medievalism can contribute to increasing the diversity of approaches, ideas and identities in the academy. How does genre fiction, long the bête noire of academic Medieval Studies fit in? What difference does translating canonical texts to new places and languages make? How do contemporary theories and constructs of identity – gender, race, sexuality, dis/ability – inflect medievalism, and how does medievalism inflect them?