Mass Market Medieval: Essays on the Middle Ages in Popular Culture ed. by David W. Marshall

This chapter argues for the first time that Quentin Tarantino based his film Inglourious Basterds in part on the medieval tale of the Nibelungs, as mediated chiefly through Fritz Lang’s Nibelungen. Inglourious Basterds can therefore be fruitfully read as an instance of medievalism, perpetuating as well as re-evaluating the widespread association of the Middle Ages with violence. An awareness of this intertext allows a nuanced interpretation of Inglourious Basterds’ stance on the power as well as manipulability of visual signs, always seen in the context of their materiality. Tarantino’s adaptation also allows fresh perspectives on the medieval Song of the Nibelungs, especially on its depiction of violent revenge. These in turn throw into relief Tarantino’s interpellation of the viewer through violence and other techniques to prevent the passive spectator position that popular culture is often accused of demanding. The film succeeds in subtly altering the conventions of cinematic representations of premodernity, and in re-appropriating a tainted national origin myth for an international audience.

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Understanding popular culture: Europe from the middle ages to the nineteenth century

History of European Ideas ◽

10.1016/0191-6599(86)90135-x ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 7 (5) ◽

pp. 542-543

Author(s):

Tim Harris

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Popular Culture ◽

Middle Ages ◽

The Middle Ages

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The Monobloc Chair: Democratising the Practice of Sitting

Res Mobilis ◽

10.17811/rm.9.11.2020.1-18 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (11) ◽

pp. 3-18

Author(s):

Carsten Kullmann

Keyword(s):

Popular Culture ◽

Cultural Studies ◽

Cultural History ◽

Middle Ages ◽

French Revolution ◽

The Enlightenment ◽

History Of ◽

Multiple Meanings ◽

The Many ◽

The Middle Ages

This article examines the cultural history of chairs to understand the many meanings the Monobloc can acquire. The history of chairs is traced from post nomadic culture through the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment period and the French Revolution. Subsequently, I will examine the Monobloc from a Cultural Studies perspective and demonstrate how its unique characteristics allow multiple meanings, which are always dependent on context and discourse. Thus, the Monobloc becomes an utterly democratic symbol of popular culture that can be appropriated for any use.

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Matei Cazacu, Dracula. Ed. Stephen W. Reinert, trans. Nicole Mordarski et al. East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, 46. Leiden: Brill, 2017, pp. xxxiii, 457, 27 illus.

Mediaevistik ◽

10.3726/med012018_438 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 31 (1) ◽

pp. 438-439

Author(s):

Thomas Farmer

Keyword(s):

Popular Culture ◽

Eastern Europe ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Central And Eastern Europe ◽

East Central ◽

The Public ◽

Historical Figure ◽

The Middle Ages

The name Vlad III Ţepeş may be unfamiliar to the public, but Dracula certainly is not; the latter conjures up a host of images from popular culture, most of which have only a tenuous connection to the former. Yet Dracula was an actual historical figure, and Matei Cazacu’s biography reveals that his life and reign are worthy of study in their own right. Having originally appeared in French in 2004, it has now been translated into English by Nicole Mordarski, a student of Stephen Reinert at Rutgers. As Reinert explains in his introduction, Mordarski translated Cazacu’s French narrative (with assistance), while he handled translations of the quotations from their original languages into English and updated the bibliography. The result is a godsend for Anglophone readers, who now have access to a thorough, scholarly account of the Impaler’s life and times.

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Reviews : Literary Studies Understanding Popular Culture: Europe from the Middle Ages to the 19th Century. Edited by Steven L. Kaplan. Berlin, New York and Amsterdam: Mouton, 1984. 311 pp. £37.50

Journal of European Studies ◽

10.1177/004724418501500404 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 15 (4) ◽

pp. 295-296

Author(s):

E.A. Warner

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Popular Culture ◽

19Th Century ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Literary Studies ◽

The 19Th Century ◽

The Middle Ages

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Joanna Miles, The Devil’s Mortal Weapons: An Anthology of Late Medieval and Protestant Vernacular Theology and Popular Culture. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2018, xv, 400 pp.

Mediaevistik ◽

10.3726/med.2019.01.138 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 32 (1) ◽

pp. 500-502

Author(s):

Albrecht Classen

Keyword(s):

Popular Culture ◽

Seventeenth Century ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Public Discourse ◽

Protestant Reformation ◽

Late Medieval ◽

The Public ◽

Religious Issues ◽

Recent Scholarship ◽

The Middle Ages

As recent scholarship has increasingly realized, all our traditional paradigms regarding historical or cultural epochs are the results of long academic debates and represent the outcome of extensive negotiations. What we have traditionally identified as the Middle Ages and as the Renaissance or the era of the Protestant Reformation, suddenly no longer seems to be so neatly separated. In fact, much of the public discourse in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, especially with respect to religious issues, morality, and ethics, continued well beyond 1500 and even extended into the seventeenth century, as mirrored, for instance, by Shakespeare, who certainly reveals many medieval elements in his writings.

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