Thoughts on the Social Value of Cross-Cultural Medieval Studies

Abstract

Medieval studies offers insights into the human condition that are distinct to the period yet crucial to comprehending our twenty-first-century moment. As the dissemination of medieval studies and modern ‘medievalisms’ widens, we gain new insight into the extent to which ideas about literature and the arts, science and the environment, racial and cultural difference, and cross-cultural interaction are grounded in the thinking of past centuries. This article highlights four new books that expand the traditional setting of medieval European studies: Geraldine Heng’s Teaching the Global Middle Ages, a handbook for teachers; Peter Haidu’s The Philomena of Chrétien the Jew, a radically new assessment of a canonical author; Andrew D. Turner’s Códice Maya de México, a pictorial, forensic, and literary presentation of the oldest surviving book of the Americas; and Larisa Grollemond and Bryan C. Keene’s The Fantasy of the Middle Ages, a lavishly illustrated survey of medievalism.