Bringing together significant statements on postmodern qualities of the invocation of the medieval, Postmodern Medievalisms is a cross-disciplinary and international collection. The volume also effects a critically celebratory appreciation of the intellectual and political possibilities of the many inchoate modes implicit in various acts of -postmodern- scholarship. The essays treat texts from the late middle ages to the contemporary moment, and together they indicate, broadly, what is happening both in postmodern studies and studies in medievalism. The fourteen essays of the collection are...

Der Kreislauf des Lebens gibt uns Menschen nach wie vor groe Rtsel auf. Gibt es einen Ursprung, oder war alles immer schon da? Das All, die Unendlichkeit, die Ewigkeit - sie sind fr unseren Verstand kaum fabar. Richard Anton Utz stellt sich den groen Fragen der Menschheit und nhert sich ihnen auf unwissenschaftliche Weise, wobei er jedoch seine Erkenntnisse sowohl aus den Naturwissenschaften wie aus der Theologie mit einflieen lt. Kann die Seele fliegen? Was passiert mit ihr, wenn wir sterben? Worin unterscheiden sich Diesseits und Jenseits? Mit diesen zentralen Themen setzt sich Utz logisch...

This book is called a manifesto because it has an unapologetically political objective. Richard Utz wants to help reform the way we think about and practice our academic engagement with medieval culture, and he uses his own observations as a medievalist and medievalism-ist over the last 25 years to offer ways in which we might reconnect with the general public that has allowed us to become, since the late nineteenth century, a rather exclusive clan of specialists who communicate mostly with each other.

The discipline of medievalism has produced a great deal of scholarship acknowledging the "makers" of the Middle Ages: those who re-discovered the period from 500 to 1500 by engaging with its cultural works, seeking inspiration from them, or fantasizing about them. Yet such approaches - organized by time period, geography, or theme - often lack an overarching critical framework. This volume aims to provide such a framework, by calling into question the problematic yet commonly accepted vocabulary used in Medievalism Studies. The contributions, by leading scholars in the field, define and...