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Arthuriana Volume 23, Number 1, Spring 2013

The XXIIIrd meeting of the International Arthurian Society—organized by Elizabeth Archibald and Ad Putter—took place in Bristol, England in July 2011. Over the course of a week, hundreds of participants presented papers, attended sessions, enjoyed excursions to Arthurian sites, and connected with scholars and colleagues from all over the world.

At the suggestion of the editors of Arthurian Literature (Elizabeth Archibald and David Johnson) it was decided that Arthuriana and Arthurian Literature should join forces and publish the best of the papers presented at the conference. This issue of Arthuriana marks the culmination of over a year of collaborative work on the part of the editors of the respective journals. This year, the annual Arthurian Literature will feature articles that originated as papers presented at the conference, and all four issues of the quarterly Arthuriana will do the same. In other words, for both publications the year 2013 will be ‘the best of Bristol.’

This first of the four special issues of Arthuriana features articles that are concerned in some way with eco-criticism, the natural world, landscapes, and geography.

THE ARTICLES:

Arthur Pendragon, Eco-Warrior
By Laurie A. Finke, Martin B. Shichtman

This essay explores the environmental agendas and ambitions that motivate John Timothy Rothwell, ‘a mad biker chieftain wielding an axe,’ who, claiming to be a ‘post-Thatcher’ King Arthur, changes his name and links his political struggles against the state to myths that mourn the lost original purity of ancient Britain. This article looks backward to authoritarian values his ecocriticism should interrogate.
Arthuriana 23.1 (2013): 5 – 19
DOI: 10.1353/art.2013.0010

The Eco-Tourist, English Heritage, and Arthurian Legend: Walking with Thoreau
By Kathleen Coyne Kelly

This article examines natural sites connected to Arthurian legend in the context of their construction as tourist sites and their designation as ecologically significant. Reading these sites through the works of Henry David Thoreau, it connects his strategic medievalism to a modern, nostalgic tendency to locate ‘nature’ in the past, paradoxically existing once (the vanished wilderness) and future (the restored wetland).
Arthuriana 23.1 (2013): 20 – 39
DOI: 10.1353/art.2013.0010

Reading Ruins: Arthurian Caerleon and the Untimely Architecture of History
By Robert Rouse

This article considers the literary deployment of the ruins of Caerleon within the Itinerarium Cambriae of Gerald of Wales. In describing the city, Gerald significantly notes both its Galfridian status as an Arthurian rival to Rome and the Roman origins of the city itself. Read in the context of Gerald’s own re-reading of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia, the episode reveals Gerald’s deployment of an Arthurian past and place as commentary upon the present colonial space of Wales.
Arthuriana 23.1 (2013): 40 – 51
DOI: 10.1353/art.2013.0003

‘The Wilderness of Wirral’ in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
By Gillian Rudd

This brief discussion of Sir Gawain’s journey across the Wirral seeks to open up questions of how literature ‘thinks’ landscape, and how that might feed into eco-critical debates. It deals with lost geographies and invented ones, and touches on notions of the otherworld as underpinning our responses to this one.
Arthuriana 23.1 (2013): 52 – 65
DOI: 10.1353/art.2013.0005

Volume 23, Number 1, Spring 2013

 

Romanesque North

Northern Spain is littered with Romanesque Art and Architecture.  A huge restoration project recently recieved the prestigious Europa Nostra Medal 2013

Románico Norte – or Romanesque North – is the name of a huge and impressive project in Northern Spain. From 2005 to 2012 a plan was laid to institute a complete restoration of 54 churches in the diocese of Palencia and Burgos, in the old Merindad Aguilar de Campo district. The geographical area covered by the Plan focuses on the North Eastern part of the Northwest province of Palencia and Burgos, where the Southern slope of the Cantabrian Mountains meet the Castilian plateau. The vast territory with its distinct topography has posed a major challenge for the whole team trying to implement the objectives of the plan for the development of the “Romanesque North”.

romanico-norte
San Juan Baptista

The work has – as can be ascertained from the website – been carried out in collaboration with a number of partners, who have provided state of the art solutions. Apart from local councils the work has been funded by La Consejería de Cultura y Turismo de la Junta de Castilla y León , la Fundación Siglo para las Artes de Castilla y León  and la Fundación Santa María la Real-Centro de Estudios del Románico . Partner has also been the Dioceses of Palencia and Burgos.

The aim has been to further sustainable economic growth, through taking care of and developing the nature, history and heritage, which is embedded in the landscape. Accordingly the work is still in progress since not only the churches but also the surrounding landscape is being analysed, described and restored.

Iglesia de San Juan Bautista
This has for instance been the case in the Iglesia de San Juan Bautista in Matamorisca, where the church is decorated with a series of very well preserved murals, which have been painstakingly restores. However, in order to provide lightening for the celebration of mass and other religious services, the church had installed a really terrifying lightening system  – with ripe possibilities for fires. Further the old lightening hampered the visitor, who wanted to study the murals in detail. Apart from restoring the church, the work carried out by Románico Norte consisted in installing a state of the art lightening, where 95% of the fuses etc. were hidden and at the same time providing a better experience both for the local villagers and the cultural tourists.

Románico Norte recently received the prestigious Europa Nostra Prize for 2013.  Read the validation here –  and see the video

READ MORE: 

Románico Norte

Read more about Romanesque art in Spain

Enciclopedia del Románico en la Peninsula Iberérica

– or access the encyclopedia in digital form

 

Medieval Power Struggle

Gardiner-Musto

The Medieval Academy of America torn in a new power  struggle

Last week The Medieval Academy of America announced that co-executive directors, Eileen Gardiner and Ron Musto have resigned, effective immediately. Richard W. Unger, president of the Academy, who made the announcement, called it regrettable. In an e-mail statement to Inside Higher Ed the two ex-directors said “they left because the board of the Academy was changing procedures to minimize the power of the staff members, who led the daily operations of the Academy, and forcing them to spend excessive time responding to “oversight” from board members.”

As far as can be gleaned from twitters and comments in blogs, observers are of the opinion that the fall-out is a reflection upon the many changes, which have taken place in the last two years, where Gardiner and Musto have worked to renew the internet-presence and the publications strategy of the Academy. So far no real explanation has been forthcoming.

However, it is a remarkable fact that a new survey on Medievalists and the Scholarly Digital Edition which was presented at the recent annual meeting in Knoxville, shows that about 50% of medievalists in 2011 still preferred to read at least some of their journals in print, while none professed to prefer exclusively to use scholarly editions in electronic form. Although the survey was done before the advent of the ipad and the other tablets on the market, it is an astounding fact that medievalists seem to be somewhat averse to electronic publishing.

In view of this it may seem a safe bet that the board might have felt inclined to reign in a future strategy whereby the Academy might move to render the established publishing houses obsolete in a situation where the new directives concerning open-access are calling for new business models. With more than 4000 members worldwide, one of the Academy’s assets is its ability to foster genuinely anonymous peer-reviews at a grand scale while at the same time turn itself into a proper medieval publishing house paid for by the money, which scholars in the future are expected to put down the publication of their work. A business model which the current publishers as opposed to a not-for-profit association cannot follow since they are in the business of making money. At the annual meeting several announcements were made, which points in this direction,  amongst these a revival of the Speculum Books Series and a possibility to discontinue reading Speculum in Print.

Gardiner and Musto have worked in various aspects of the book trade since 1967 and cofounded Italica Press in 1985. They have individually and jointly authored and edited numerous books, articles, reviews, and websites, with a concentration on medieval studies and e-publishing. They have most recently been working together on the book, The Digital Humanities: A Primer for Scholars and Studies, to be published by Cambridge University Press. However, both are also acclaimed medievalists.