Race, Class, and Gender in "Medieval" Cinema

The medieval film genre is not, in general, concerned with constructing a historically accurate past, but much analysis nonetheless centers on highlighting anachronisms. This book aims to help scholars and aficionados of medieval film think about how the re-creation of an often mythical past performs important cultural work for modern directors and viewers. The essays in this collection demonstrate that directors intentionally insert modern preoccupations into a setting that would normally be considered incompatible with these concepts. The Middle Ages provide an imaginary space far enough removed from the present day to explore modern preoccupations with human identity.

Lynn T. Ramey is Associate Professor of French at Vanderbilt University, where she is an affiliate of the film studies program and teaches a course on the history of French film. Her publications include numerous articles on East-West relations in medieval Europe as well as a book, Christian, Saracen and Genre in Medieval French Literature (2001).
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Tison Pugh is Associate Professor of English at the University of Central Florida. He is the author of Queering Medieval Genres and co-editor of Approaches to Teaching Chaucer’s “Troilus and Criseyde” and the Shorter Poems.