Böcker utgivna av Arc Humanities Press

This collection explores playful ways of fostering creative engagements with the medieval and early modern past and its own literary and artistic products, especially among those new to their study. As scholars and teachers of early English, the contributors cover literary and cultural material from a range of genres within the Old English, Middle English, Tudor, and Stuart periods and collectively delve into a shared interest in facilitating what we might loosely define as "newcomer" or "non-specialist" encounters with the past: initial, exploratory contact in which prior knowledge cannot be assumed, whether involving creative professionals, experts from other disciplines, undergraduate and school students, or members of the public. Considering artworks and installation, theatre and performance and curation practices, case studies offer practice-based examples of learning and engagement which proceed primarily through creative and playful approaches. The case studies are arranged into two broad groups: those which work through performance and theatrical play of various kinds, and those which work through playful practices of production and making. All share a perspective of irreverence, of vivid immersion, and of the possibilities of conjuring with the past.

Museums have long been viewed as exclusive, excluding, and as antiseptic to intimacy. In the past few decades, however, humanized experiences--cultivated by curators, educators, artists, activists, and marketers alike--have emerged as the reason for being for these cornerstones of community. Such experiences are often possible only in museum settings, where cultural exploration, probing conversation, and safe risk-taking can occur in spaces now becoming sacred through inclusiveness. This book brings together an interdisciplinary collection of essays examining the kinds of human experiences and interactions that have converted the once-sterile museum into a space of enlivenment and enrichment, as well as physical and emotional well-being. The essays focus for the first time on the uniquely human and humanizing experiences to be found in the collections, programs, exhibitions, and spaces of today's museums.

This book is a new cultural and intellectual history of the natural world in the early medieval Latin West. It examines the complex relationships between language, texts, and the physical world they describe, focusing on the manuscripts of the Physiologus--the foundation of the medieval bestiary. The Physiologus helped to shape the post-Roman worldview about the role and place of human beings in Creation. This process drew on classical ideas, but in its emphasis on allegory, etymology, and a plurality of readings, it was original and distinctive. This study demonstrates precisely how the early medieval re-contextualization of existing knowledge, together with a substantial amount of new writing, set the course of ideas about faith and nature for centuries to come. In doing so, it establishes the importance of multi-text miscellanies for early medieval written culture.

Describes the Almoravid transformation of western North Africa through trans-Saharan and trans-Mediterranean commerce, urbanization, and the epic encounter with the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish cultures of Iberia.

The concept of the Rus' Land became and remained an historical myth of modern Russian nationalism as the equivalent of "Russia." This book looks at the history of the use of the concept of the Rus' Land from the tenth to the seventeenth century.

These teaching and reference materials paint a vivid picture of the kinds of French that medieval English learners might desire to wield and of the high levels of fluency they could achieve.

"Europe" has become a modern political concept, but it has a long and varied history. This volume analyzes medieval ideas of Europe and their representations by modern historians.

Using histories, letters, and material culture from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, this book explores how violence was understood and justified during the time of the crusades.

A comparative approach to the role of women in religious and monastic life in Europe and the Americas during the medieval and early modern periods.

Sixteenth-century ethnographic accounts of Baltic paganism in English translation for the first time. With a critical introduction placing these texts in the contexts of early modern ethnography, Baltic history, and Reformation religious polemic.

An annual publication of historiographical essays on the pre-modern world; this issue celebrating the life and work of Paul E. Szarmach.

A comparative analysis tackling the impact of the growth of centralized government on elite women's power in later twelfth- and thirteenth-century Boulogne and northern France.

Grounds mythologized stories of Desert Ascetics with insights into lived monasticism and monastic archaeology in Egypt.

A study of medieval Marian laments, a performative genre that offered clerical and lay audiences a deeply inspiring devotional experience.

Evidence that the Second Plague Pandemic was already ravaging China by the early thirteenth century--over a century before it made its virulent appearance in the Mediterranean.

Analyzes how biblical analogy functioned as a religio-political tool for Elizabeth across her reign, and argues that their widespread use demonstrates their potency as a tool for legitimizing and sustaining her power.

This volume examines new ways to design, develop, explore, and visualize spatial datasets to investigate spatial dimensions and world perceptions in pre-modern sources and societies.

An overarching, comprehensive analysis of the French military in the medieval period, focusing on the armies of the French monarchy and the lands close around them, and extending from the Low Countries to Provence.

The concept of the Rus' Land became and remained an historical myth of modern Russian nationalism as the equivalent of "Russia." This book looks at the history of the use of the concept of the Rus' Land from the tenth to the seventeenth century.

This study shows the importance of carolling in the celebrations and festivities of medieval Britain and demonstrates its longevity from the eleventh century to the sixteenth.

This book examines how the military orders and the ideology of crusading gave rise to a new sacred landscape in the medieval Baltic region, an outpost of Latin Christianity.

The first biography of John Vitez, an influential figure of the Early Renaissance, presenting a complex picture of cultural, political, and religious developments in Central Europe.

This book argues that the causes that led to the Islamization of most of the Holy Land's population from the seventh century onwards, as well as the survival of some religious communities, are essentially social and geographic in nature, rather than theological.

The first ever volume fully dedicated to Iberoamerican neomedievalisms that examines the meanings and uses of "the Middle Ages" in Iberian America.

A practical guide to teaching medieval topics at university through project-based learning, demonstrating how incorporating formal educational research and pedagogy into the undergraduate medieval history classroom can benefit the educational experiences of both instructors and students.

This interdisciplinary compendium to the animal inhabitants of medieval Britain, documents each creature mentioned in the Old English literary textual canon and provides ecological, historical, and archaeological context.