Reshaping the Middle Ages in, and through, Asian Popular Culture. 36th Annual International Conference on Medievalism (Delta college, Michigan)

Reshaping the Middle Ages in, and through, Asian Popular Culture

Sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture and the Mutual Images Research Association.

For Medievalism Today: 36th Annual International Conference on Medievalism, organized by the International Society for the Study of Medievalism and hosted by Delta College, Michigan.

Online Conference: 4-6 November 2021.

Proposals due 30 June 2021.

As medievalists and medievalismists, we often focus our attention on the reception of the Middle Ages in Europe and the Americas; however, medievalism is both an international and a transnational phenomenon, and one that is especially prevalent in Asian popular culture. Anime, collectible card games, light novels, manga, video games, visual novels, and related media have had an incredible impact on the world, but few medievalists have explored how this material has adapted and/or appropriated material like the Arthurian tradition, Beowulf, the life and writings of Dante Alighieri, the hero stories of medieval Ireland, the life of Joan of Arc, Norse mythology, tales of Robin Hood, narratives of Viking exploration, and legends of Vlad the Impaler. Fewer still have explored the impact of the phenomenal spread of these texts across the globe and their impact on creating perceptions about the medieval world. It is our intent with this session to allow consumers of these media to share their knowledge and passion with fellow enthusiasts of the medieval. We also hope that a collection of essays will result from this session.

Please send paper proposals (along with your contact information and a brief academic biography) and/or questions directly to session organizers at medievalinpopularculture@gmail.com.

Unless otherwise directed, we will submit the panel details to the conference.

More information about the conference can be found at https://medievalism.net/conference/.

Further information about the session sponsors may be found at

https://medievalinpopularculture.blogspot.com/ and https://mutualimages.org/.