Richard UtzA quick abstract for my plenary at this year's Medieval Congress, The Notion of the Middle Ages: Our Middle Ages, Ourselves While medievalists have become more geographically, culturally, methodologically, and linguistically inclusive, have more access to more medieval texts, and have amassed more detailed knowledge about aspects of medieval culture than ever before, the most decisive qualitative change since the beginnings of the Medieval Congress 50 years ago is the inclusion of subjective, affective, atemporal, and public connections medievalists make when they engage with the Middle Ages.
#Kzoo2015 #utzplenary greatest step forward in medieval studies has been not quantitative (expansion of publications, data) but qualitative- #Kzoo2015 #utzplenary medievalists often end up moving themselves from first person to third person in their thinking and writing
- #utzplenary #Kzoo2015 Medievalism as the affective, rejected double to medieval studies
- #Kzoo2015 #utzplenary Trumpets Dinshaw as way forward for merging amateur and scholarly perspectives
#Kzoo2015 #utzplenary Thinking carefully abt history o medievalism in context o histories of other "isms" Amer & Eur; Dinshaw models a "now"- #Kzoo2015 #utzplenary some will see historical context as a bulwark against supremacist medievalism; or as defense against hostile academy
- #Kzoo2015 #utzplenary considers own whiteness & non queerness; how do autobiog & identitarian experiences shape future of medieval studies?
- #Kzoo2015 #utzplenary Moving on to the challenges of the new-liberal academy. One way forward: partner with amateurs and postmedievalists
- #Kzoo2015 #utzplenary Hasn't the SCA added so much knowledge to our field? Isn't building a new castle worth more than 50 scholarly essays?
- #Kzoo2015 #utzplenary shoutout to @GroupBABEL! Very curious to see this audience's reaction. Glad that ppl love the humor & play.
- #Kzoo2015 #utzplenary Asks: have you benefitted from blogs, popular books on medieval? Then let's recognize them as contributions they are.
- #Kzoo2015 #utzplenary quality, not prestige, should count: blogs, websites, para academic communities MUST be supported & VALUED.
- #Kzoo2015 #utzplenary Love of Middle Ages is no fault; it's our virtue.
Shoutout to whoever is manning @materialcoll for their #utzplenary tweets. I'm a little less sorry to have missed the talk.- At #kzoo2015 the first facsimile with hair/flesh feeling. Paul the Deacon Historian Langobardorum https://instagram.com/p/2vrRqmJcHi/
