This wide-ranging study examines the role of the dream in medieval culture with reference to philosophical, legal and theological writings as well as literary and autobiographical works. Stephen Kruger studies the development of theories of dreaming, from the Neoplatonic and patristic writers to late medieval re-interpretations, and shows how these theories relate to autobiographical accounts and to more popular treatments of dreaming. He considers previously neglected material including one important dream vision by Nicole Oresme, and arrives at a new understanding of this literary genre,...

This wide-ranging study examines the role of the dream in medieval culture with reference to philosophical, legal and theological writings as well as literary and autobiographical works. Stephen Kruger studies the development of theories of dreaming, from the Neoplatonic and patristic writers to late medieval re-interpretations, and shows how these theories relate to autobiographical accounts and to more popular treatments of dreaming. He considers previously neglected material including one important dream vision by Nicole Oresme, and arrives at a new understanding of this literary genre,...

An examination of AIDS fiction revealing how AIDS discourses have shaped society's understanding of the disease. Kruger (Queens College, City U. of New York) analyzes scientific texts, arguing that their language has made AIDS an exclusively gendered, gay disease. From this vantage point, he critica

Medieval European culture encompassed Judaic, Christian, Muslim, and pagan societies, forming a complex matrix of religious belief, identity, and imagination. Through incisive readings of a broad range of medieval texts and informed by poststructuralist, queer, and feminist theories, The Spectral Jew traces the Jewish presence in Western Europe to show how the body, gender, and sexuality were at the root of the construction of medieval religious anxieties, inconsistencies, and instabilities.

Looking closely at how medieval Jewish and Christian identities are distinguished from each...

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.