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Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies

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Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies

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Terry Jones is coming to Saskatchewan!

02 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by eda649 in Local, Newsworthy

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Chaucer, community, Monty Python, popular culture, public engagement, Saskatchewan, Terry Jones

Terry Jones is coming to Saskatchewan!

… Or at least, he’s arriving via Skype.

The Departments of English, CMRS, and Drama are hosting the launch of the University of Saskatchewan’s digital application of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales on April 9th. In the South Studio of the Greystone Theatre, the culmination of several months’ work will be revealed to the university community. One of the exciting things about this digital edition is the visual representation of the text by Chaucer, the audio readings by Colin Gibbings, and a translation by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. I’ve seen the “app” in its infancy, and the process of putting the text together in all of its forms and then working through bugs, interface, and design, was an interesting process, even in those early stages. I would highly recommend going to the launch, just to see the project.

In the meantime, however, some of you may be wondering what a Python has to do with the Canterbury Tales. As a kid, I loved watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail (probably much to the distress of my friends’ parents), and I knew that the troupe were highly educated and highly intelligent, but I did not know that Terry Jones was a scholar of pre-modern history until recently.

For anyone who wants to know what brings Terry Jones to Saskatoon in his capacity as a scholar of Chaucer, here is some information straight from the Ministry of Silly Walks:

  • His first book was Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (1980), a controversial critique of the current reading of The Knight’s Tale, which suggests that the eponymous character is less than a “parfit gentle knight,” and more of a bloodthirsty mercenary.
  • In 2003, he wrote Who Killed Chaucer? in which he argues that Chaucer’s proximity to King Richard the Second left the poet in dire straits when the king was deposed. In his review of Jones’ book for The Guardian, Jonathan Myerson describes the person of Thomas Arundel, and his importance in the latter part of Chaucer’s life:

The central plank of Jones’s theory is the 1399 coup which put Henry IV on the throne and Thomas Arundel back behind it. In fact, from the moment he enters the narrative, it’s clear that Arundel’s the one wearing the black cloak and riding the black horse … Arundel had grown fat, rich and powerful by holding a succession of bishoprics. Needing now to consolidate a usurper king, the last thing he could stomach was people saying the church was full of fat, rich and power-hungry hypocrites … So the last thing Arundel wanted, Jones argues, was more descriptions of rip-off churchmen. And yet here’s Chaucer, using his final masterwork to make everyone laugh at the pardoner who sells fake indulgences to poor congregations; at the summoner (a church court policeman, who probably is the pardoner’s significant other) demanding bribes from defendants or will-be-defendants-if-they-don’t-cough-up; at the monk spending all his time hunting; and at the friar, who should be penniless but is clearly a pampered, harp-strumming social climber. In fact, it’s arguable that the entirety of the Tales – with their gentle mockery of the fake piety of pilgrimages – is an assault on the “church commercial” which relied so heavily on income from pilgrims. (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/15/classics.highereducation)

  • Jones received an Emmy nomination in 2004 for “Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming” for his television series Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives.(It was followed up by book by the same name in 2007 published by BBC). Check out Episode 1 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg3YDN5gTX0
  • In the aptly named Terry Jones’ Barbarians (2006), Jones presented the cultural achievements of peoples conquered by theRoman Empire in a more positive light than Roman historians typically have, while criticising the Romans as the true “barbarians” who exploited and destroyed higher civilisations. Episode 1 of this series from BBC can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKGVqXznpNU

 

And of course, most recently, Jones has provided a translation of The Canterbury Tales for our homegrown mobile application. The launch on April 9th will likely include more information on Colin’s voice-work in creating an audio accompaniment, Dr Peter Robinson’s direction in the project, as well as all the rest of the people who have been involved in putting it together. Come to the South Studio of the Greystone Theatre at 4pm! Find out more here: http://artsandscience.usask.ca/english/news/event.php?newsid=4875.

 

  • Elyn Achtymichuk

 

Works Cited

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Ed. Jill Mann. London: Penguin, 2005. Print.

Jones, Terry. Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary. London: Methuen, 1994. Print.

—. “The Peasant.” Terry Jones’ Barbarians. UK: BBC Worldwide. 9 April 2009. Web. 24 March 2015.

—. “The Primitive Celts.” Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives. UK: BBC Worldwide. 1 December 2012. Web. 24 March 2015.

—. Who Murdered Chaucer? A Medieval Mystery. UK: BBC Publications, 2007. Print.

Myerson, Jonathan. “Whodunnit? Jonathan Myerson is rapt in a Python’s coils of explanation as to the writer’s mysterious end in Who Murdered Chaucer? by Terry Jones et al.” Rev. of Who Murdered Chaucer? A Medieval Mystery, by Terry Jones, Robert Yeager, Terry Doran, Alan Fletcher and Jeanette D’Or. The Guardian Nov 2003. Online.

“The Wife of Bath Meets Brian’s Mum: World Premiere! New Work by Geoffrey Chaucer, with the assistance of Terry Jones.” Departments of English, CMRS, & Drama. University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon. 9 April 2015. Address.

Medieval Feast: This Saturday!

26 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by eda649 in Local

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Classics, community, Medieval Studies, Renaissance Studies, Saskatchewan

Saturday, March 28th!

Saturday, March 28th!

This Saturday, Comitatus (the CMRS student group at the University of Saskatchewan) will be hosting a Medieval Feast! The proceeds will be going towards the contingent of students who will be attending the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan!

Here’s the link to the Medieval Feast:

https://www.facebook.com/events/424434334390869/

And here’s the link to the conference:

http://wmich.edu/medieval/congress/

Congress takes place from May 14 to 17th. Check out our Facebook group, “CMRS at the U of S” for more information about Comitatus events.

-Elyn Achtymichuk

 

Games of Thrones: Good for Medieval Studies?

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by eda649 in Popular Culture

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community, George RR Martin, GoT, popular culture, public engagement, Tolkien

The popularity of Game of Thrones – both the novels themselves as well as the HBO television series – is hard to deny. Millions of people watch the show, and some of them even heard about the books first.

One of the remarkable things about Game of Thrones is that, despite its supernatural elements, certain parts of the setting hearken to the popular conception of a medieval period: familial and monarchal rule, alliances based on marriage (and alliances broken just as easily), as well as other details related to technology and dress which indicate to an average audience that this series seems very similar to what they conceptualize as the history of western civilization.

C'mon people, use proper punctuation ... memes isn't even possessive here!

Ugh, that should be “memes.”

I know I’ve already upset every Medieval scholar within range, so I’ll hasten to add that obviously there are huge problems with comparing an obviously fictional and fantastical series to real life. There are enough historical inaccuracies in the popular conception without tossing in the additional complications of fantasy.

The same could be said of Tolkien; an entire breed of fantasy novels has been and continues to be inspired by Tolkien, re-using the characteristics of a “sword and sorcery” genre, containing elements that never have never actually existed: knights did not exist in reality as they do in the common imagination; castles, kingdoms, and structures of government were far less epic and / or romantic; even very simple concepts of social and class mobility, gender equity, and the role of justice, which are such ingrained ideas in a modern audience, are complete anachronisms for the medieval time period. Tolkien and his successors in the genre have contributed enormously to the misconceptions rampant in the common imagination.

So Game of Thrones is bad, right?

Insofar as any fictional text – even historically based – is never going to be completely accurate, even taking massive liberties with the time period in order to a) tell a story and b) conform to the misinformation that already exists in the mind of the audience, we should not, of course, be using Game of Thrones as a textbook.

However, can we use Game of Thrones in our teaching to introduce students to true and accurate concepts in medieval study?

I’m thinking specifically in regards to death. Death happens so frequently in Game of Thrones as to have become an internet meme.

everybody died

When asked about it, George R.R. Martin refers to the frequency of death in his writing as necessary for the character construction, “when my characters are in danger, I want you to be afraid to turn the page, (so) you need to show right from the beginning that you’re playing for keeps.” Death becomes his greatest tool in creating character, but it’s also his greatest tool in differentiating himself from other authors who are set their stories in a similar time period: he say that Tolkien and his ilk write “Disneyland Middle Ages,” a jibe the correctly identifies Tolkien’s fantasy as being unrealistically PG rated. (See, Martin agrees with all you medieval scholars, too!). Martin says, “we look at real history and it’s not that simple … Just having good intentions doesn’t make you a wise king.”

So what can learn about death in Martin’s text that we can apply to Medieval studies?

Paradoxically, death in the medieval period is a way of life.

We might ask our students, how does death in Martin’s text change how we think of death in literature?

We might then go on to say, how does death in the medieval period inform the way people live their lives? How does the prevalence of death and destruction govern the rules of society?

When death is a major concern, how does that change how governing officials are chosen? How relationships are made? How families are constructed? Even further, how property is divided and how land titles are created?

In effect, Martin teaches the new scholar of Medieval study that Death changes everything. They don’t have to believe what Martin says about dress, technology, or even social arrangements (in fact, they should use what they learn to question Martin’s descriptions). But Game of Thrones gives new students a way into the conversation, and it gives burgeoning academics in the field a way to test their knowledge: it may not be Shakespeare, but the pedagogical potential of Game of Thrones has interesting implications for CMRS studies, and I would argue, humanities study as a whole.

-Elyn Achtymichuk

Works Cited

Martin, George R.R. A Song of Ice and Fire (series). New York: Bantam, 2013. Print.

 

Community Engagement in Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies

02 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by eda649 in Community Engagement

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Classics, community, knowledge mobilization, Medieval Studies, public engagement, Renaissance Studies, SSHRC

Generated by wordle.net

SSHRC’s Knowledge Mobilization Strategy

Scholars are responding to a social imperative to make their research accessible to a wider audience outside the university campus. Universities are increasingly including public engagement among their strategic priorities, and in recent years funding agencies have placed particular importance on engagement with the wider community. In 2011, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council released its knowledge mobilization strategy based on “the need for prompt action to implement measures designed to strengthen the practice of knowledge mobilization leading to intellectual, social and economic impact.” As recently as January of 2015, the National Endowment for the Humanities introduced The Common Good: The Humanities in the Public Square, which is “an agency-wide initiative of the [NEH] designed to demonstrate the critical role humanities scholarship can play in our public life.” Their “hope is to encourage humanities scholars and organizations to turn their attention toward public life … the initiative invites humanists to engage in illuminating the grand challenges that we now face as a nation.” There is widespread recognition of the ethical and sociopolitical imperative of creating meaningful relationships between scholars and their respective communities. How do we create “knowledge mobilization” when modern public life may seem remote from classical, medieval, and renaissance studies? How do we make the imperative of community engagement more relevant to our scholars?

 

How to move from imperative to implementation is not so clear. Many questions remain. What constitutes public engagement? Service and outreach are typically conceived as one-way approaches to delivering knowledge and service to the public, whereas engagement emphasizes a two-way approach in which institutions and community partners collaborate to develop and apply knowledge to address societal needs (Boyer, 1996; Kellogg Commission, 1999) (quoted in Weerts and Sandmann 632). The possibilities for new, digital modes of dissemination add to our imperative as we feel pressed to assert the continuing relevance of the humanities (Kee 2014). Discussion of knowledge mobilization is bound up with questions of impact, assessment, and our understanding of what constitutes scholarly output at key career points (Lamont 2009, Fitzpatrick 2011). Once we have created plans and programs for engaging audiences outside the academy, how do we measure the impact of these initiatives?  In the use of social media especially, we need to determine what forms of public engagement are meaningful, worthwhile, or even appropriate. Are the number of likes, followers, and shares really a determiner of success, or are there are other methods of determining impact? Is it possible to quantify impact, or do we seek other indicators of success in knowledge mobilization?

– Elyn Achtymichuk

Works Cited:

Boyer, E. “The scholarship of engagement.” Journal of Public Service and Outreach 1.1 (1996) 11–20.
“The Common Good: The Humanities in the Public Square.” National Endowment for the Humanities 15 Jan. 2015. <http://www.neh.gov/commongood> Web. 26 Jan.2015.
Fitzpatrick, Kathleen. Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy. New York: New York University Press, 2011.
Kellogg Commission. “Returning to Our Roots: The Engaged Institution.” Future of State and Land-Grant Universities. New York: 1999. Web.
Lamont, Michèle. How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2009.
“NEH Chairman Adams Announces Common Good Initiative.” National Endowment for the Humanities 15 Jan. 2015. Web. 16 Jan.2015.
“SSHRC’S Knowledge Mobilization Strategy.” Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. 2009-11. Web. 27 March 2015.
Weerts, David J. and LorileeR. Sandmann. “Community Engagement and Boundary-Spanning Roles at Research Universities.” The Journal of Higher Education 81.6 (2010) 632-657.

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