Medieval Studies as a Public Good
By Jonathan F. Correa Reyes
As medievalists, we currently find ourselves with the difficult task of arguing for the importance of the past as both an archive and an analytical tool for the present and the future of humanity. It is no exaggeration to say that the field is in the midst of a disciplinary crisis. But this crisis is also an opportunity. As Anne Le optimistically remarks, crises can catalyze change and what might emerge is a medieval studies that embraces new critical directions and reaches broader audiences. Nevertheless, to make that future a possibility, we must first decide whether medieval studies should be saved.
What would a medieval studies worth saving look like? This question animates a recent essay by The Material Collective. Ending the essay with an inspiring ‘Manifesto for a Modern Medieval Studies,’ they conclude that for the field to be useful to the wider world and avoid capitulating to the neoliberal and conservative forces plaguing higher education, medievalists must practice radical forms of solidarity.[1] It is heartening to imagine a medieval studies that embraces solidarity as a core principle. Creating this future (or any other) requires us to make a strong case for the value of the skills cultivated by medievalists for the present and the future of humanity. This value is unlikely to be monetized. The fruits of our research will likely never be as ‘productive’ (i.e. profitable) as those of our STEM colleagues, for instance. The absence of profitability, however, does not diminish the positive impact medieval studies can have as a public good.
To effectively argue for medieval studies’ value in the wider world, we first need to be in conversation with the world beyond our institutions. It is imperative that we think about our discipline not only as part of the university, but also as part of society at large. The future of our discipline will depend on our ability to, as Judith Butler remarks, establish ‘the humanities as a public value or, indeed, a public good.’ But a long tradition of elite inaccessibility haunts medieval studies. As Sierra Lomuto explains, ‘within the crisis of the humanities, medieval studies becomes a battleground: it is either a last priority because its inaccessibility masks its relevance to pressing concerns of the present, or it becomes a priority because it symbolizes tradition for those who want to hold onto Eurocentric narratives about the past.’ The field’s long legacy of inaccessibility is the first obstacle we must overcome. This inaccessibility reinforces notions of the medieval past as a white heritage, since most studies that dispel ideas of medieval Europe as a homogenous white space remain off-limits for those without access to university libraries and resources.
By embracing the framework of the public humanities, we help transform medieval studies into a field that operates as a public good, a field committed to social justice values and collaborative modes of scholarship. This framework can help us burst through some of the systemic exclusions that restrict access to knowledge, and effect real change in the demographic make-up of medieval studies. As usefully defined by the Public Humanities Hub at The University of British Columbia,
Public humanities scholarship can refer to humanities work that prioritizes public engagement; research that aims to bring high-brow cultural artifacts within reach of a broader audience. Alternately, public humanities can refer to academic engagement that seeks to reimagine and collaboratively curate and in fact, redistribute, access to the capacity to create knowledge amongst a very broad set of publics, including most particularly, communities historically and persistently marginalized.
According to this definition, public humanities has a translational and a transformative goal. The first objective concerns increasing access to scholarship and cultural artifacts. The second one refers to transforming the ways in which we produce knowledge by embracing processes of discovery undertaken by collaborative groups from the university and the larger community. Furthermore, as we work to establish more community-oriented initiatives, we must also continue to re-establish our credibility by making the objects and the fruits of our research more accessible. This crossover issue between The So What and Arthuriana gestures towards ongoing efforts to mend relations between academic institutions and their wider communities, and helps pave the way to a future when medieval studies is recognized as a public good.
Imagining medieval studies as a public good is not a naïve proposition. I understand that making information more accessible will not single-handedly defuse white supremacist fantasies about the medieval past. I am under no illusions that increasing our output of public scholarship will miraculously revitalize the field or make institutions realize the value of studying the medieval past. Yet academic apathy is not the better response. In the United States, the brandishing of medieval imagery by self-proclaimed alt-right groups during the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville and the January 6 Capitol riot made the stakes of our indifference evident. And as Lomuto and Dorothy Kim point out, medieval studies has been a lifeline for the white supremacist fascination with the Middle Ages as a golden age for white heritage. We have an ethical responsibility to the truth and to social justice. We must approach these problems with the conviction that rational arguments and responsible interpretations of the evidence at our disposal hold persuasive power. Otherwise, we lose before the fight begins.
Publics beyond the academy are receptive to our brand of humanities, which is a reason for optimism. A recent American Historical Association (AHA) report confirms that public interest in the past remains vibrant in the United States. Most respondents found learning about history (both recent and distant) to be important, and also expressed a desire to learn about racial/ethnic groups besides their own.[2] While the institutional and disciplinary future of medieval studies remains uncertain in many ways, a future in which our scholarship remains relevant is visible.
Creating this future, however, requires us to reorient the relationship between medieval studies and the public. For our field to serve as a public good and have a meaningful impact beyond the academy, we must first re-establish our credibility. With the majority of our publications hidden behind paywalls and aimed at an audience of experts, it is unsurprising that most people use more accessible forms of media as their sources of information. Ali A. Olomi reminds us that public demand for accessible scholarship remains high, especially on social media platforms.[3] Whatever shape the field takes moving forward, social media and other digital technologies will be a part of that future. As Olomi cautions, the ‘era of experts as gatekeepers is over… A new era of scholars as guides is needed.’[4] It is exciting to envision a field that encourages medievalists to broaden the reach of the debates and forge ties with community groups beyond the spaces of higher education.[5] This is what a medieval studies worth saving looks like.
Participating in conversations about the things that make people excited about the medieval past can be a lifeline for medievalists. By equating prestige with exclusivity, many medievalists overzealously distinguish between issues of academic and popular interest, as if our research was hermetically sealed from popular trends and tastes. For instance, the study of medievalisms, entry points into the Middle Ages for many, is often dismissed as ‘popular’ writing. Kathleen Biddick has shown how the separation between medieval studies as academic discipline and medievalism as external, popular culture, aligns with the designs of the nineteenth-century scholars who created the field.[6] We must soften (if not dispense with) the popular vs academic binary.
We can begin to address this binary by revising our terminology. Anna Wilson proposes that we speak about ‘fandoms’ as an alternative to ‘popular,’ an obscure term often used by ‘professional’ (traditionally trained) medievalists to minimize writing aimed at and produced by ‘amateur’ (non-traditionally trained) medievalists. Fandoms are spaces where the ‘study of the Middle Ages takes place within a series of overlapping virtual communities—fandoms—with different styles, modes, and expectations surrounding their knowledge production.’[7] Understood in this way, Wilson explains, ‘professional’ medievalists are just another fandom.
Medievalist fandoms will be (and in fact already are) vital to sustaining interest in the Middle Ages outside of academic institutions. As public trust in universities declines and academic job prospects continue to shrink, many medievalist PhDs find themselves leveraging their training in a broad range of career paths.[8] Given the current condition of the job market, as well as the fact that not every graduate student wishes to join the professoriate, more and more medievalists will continue to find community and think about the Middle Ages through these fandoms. While we cannot control the job market, we can cooperate with different fandoms to support medievalists operating outside of academia. Furthermore, we should continue to pursue collaborative projects and multi-authored publications that make space for medievalists beyond the academy. In the words of Tarren Andrews, ‘the joyful possibilities of collaboration extend our horizons in near infinite directions of expansion, reimagination, and—to return to Tuhiwai Smith—intellectual decolonization.’[9] As we imagine the possible futures of medieval studies, let us imagine a field that embraces radical forms of solidarity and actively makes space for all medievalists, while continuing to advocate loudly for job opportunities within the university too.
Open-access publications that prioritize scholarly rigor without sacrificing accessibility are another way to make our knowledge production have a responsible impact: hence The So What (TSW). As a public-facing, peer-reviewed, digital publication, TSW invites contributors to ‘explore that difficult “so what” question,’ and consider ‘why what medievalists do matters, what we can learn (for good or ill) from the Middle Ages, and why the study of what was remains so important for what is and for what can be.’ As an open-access publication, TSW invites authors to think communally about the ‘so whats’ of medieval studies, the enduring throughlines that still link our imaginations as well as popular and political discourse to the medieval past, and about the importance of remembering the past to make sense of the present and to imagine possible futures.
The Troubadour, 1868–73. Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879). Oil on fabric; framed: 99.5 x 73 x 8 cm (39 3/16 x 28 3/4 x 3 1/8 in.); unframed: 83.6 x 56.8 cm (32 15/16 x 22 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna Jr. 1958.23.
This crossover issue between TSW and Arthuriana is an invitation to think about our works’ impact beyond the academy. The seven essays in this issue speak to the relevance of the medieval past for the present, while also demonstrating how modern and contemporary ideologies color our engagement with this past. Despite their brevity, these essays intervene in fraught debates and advance scholarly rigorous arguments while remaining accessible to diverse readerships. The humanities, Le reminds us, are ‘of the people and for the people.’ Beyond translating research for a larger audience, these essays light the way towards a future with more collaborative forms of knowledge production, a future when our brand of humanities is recognized as a public good.
One of the most meaningful impacts our scholarship can have is by helping to amplify diverse community voices and histories, which can help marginalized individuals and communities navigate difficult experiences. Thinking along these lines, few medieval narratives seem as immediately relevant to contemporary discussions about gender and sexuality as the Roman de Silence, the focus of Christopher T. Richards’ contribution. The poem tells the story of Silence, who is assigned female at birth but is raised as a boy. By the end, Silence is publicly stripped, and her ‘natural’ (genital) gender is confirmed as the ‘correct’ one. However, Richards argues that the manuscript’s intricate interplay of text and image offers a more nuanced and complex understanding of gender than the poem itself. Rather than simple visual representations of the text, the manuscript’s illuminations introduce ambiguities and inconsistencies. Figures depicted as masculine in the text may exhibit feminine features in the miniatures, effectively challenging the binary understanding of gender the poem ultimately celebrates.[10] Richards centers the agency of a medieval artist who, rather than passively illustrating the text, actively interpreted and reinterpreted the story through the model of the trans Silence’s own authentic and artistic agency to dress and behave as they saw fit.
Mario Martín Páez bridges disciplinary boundaries by reading medieval narratives through an anthropological lens in his essay. He demonstrates how social and cultural factors, such as class, arranged marriages, and Christian values, profoundly shape the portrayal of love in Old Norse sources. While many of these stories depict tragic endings where lovers find union only in death, Martín Páez argues that these conclusions do not necessarily reaffirm the power of social constraints. Instead, the emphasis on post-humous union can be interpreted as a subtle expression of defiance against the societal norms that prevented love's fulfillment in life. This essay ultimately shows how the complex dynamics of fictional representations of love as suffering both reinforces and subverts social constraints.
Demonstrating the relevance of the medieval past for the pressing issues of the present, Elizabeth Liendo compares depictions of sexual violence in medieval texts and contemporary media in her essay. She submits that while both Andreas Capellanus’ De Amore and modern television shows like Game of Thrones attempt to ‘contain’ depictions of sexual violence within fictional frameworks, these attempts ultimately fail. Focusing on the ‘Purgatory of Cruel Beauties,’ an episode where women who refused romantic/sexual advances are subjected to horrific punishments, Liendo explains how De Amore attempts to contain the violence within the realm of fiction in order to allow its audience to delight in the violence. Contrastingly, shows like Game of Thrones justify their graphic depictions of sexual violence by appealing to historical accuracy and realism. She ends by addressing how consuming this kind of violence blurs the lines between fantasy and reality, effectively desensitizing audiences to violence.
Alexander McAdams explores the profound and lasting impact of the Arthurian legend on the development of British identity and the rise of the British Empire. She demonstrates how socio-political agendas have always informed invocations of the medieval past. Moving beyond debates about Arthur’s factual existence, she highlights how English monarchs strategically employed the belief in Arthur’s historicity to legitimize their power and consolidate their rule. This belief was weaponized, particularly during the Tudor and Stuart eras, to justify English expansionism and colonial ventures. McAdams’ study demonstrates how national projects of recovering the medieval past are never solely matters of historical accuracy, but highly selective and purposeful processes. To conjure the medieval past is to shape that memory to serve the needs and interests of the conjurer.
Drawing further attention to how appeal to the medieval past could be leveraged politically, Jonathan F. Correa Reyes and Camila Gutiérrez read the “Arthurian arc” of Mampato and Ogú, a popular Chilean children’s comic by cartoonist Themo Lobos, as a tool for national self-fashioning and colonial resistance. Rather than passively rehearsing the Arthurian mythos, the comic rewrites it to subvert the colonial narratives that cast Chile as a backward nation in need of British guidance. Thus, Mampato counters some of the colonial applications of medievalisms.[11] As Mampato, a Chilean boy, travels around medieval England, he solves multiple problems plaguing the Arthurian world—even saving Arthur from an assassination plot. The comics publication during the presidency of Salvador Allende, with its focus on social justice and progressive ideals, likely resonated with a Chilean audience seeking to redefine its relationship with the global order. However, the comic's re-publication under the Pinochet dictatorship, known for strict censorship practices, suggests that the more radical messages embedded within Mampato’s Arthurian arc escaped the scrutiny of censors.
In a way, Vanessa K. Iacocca’s contribution dovetails with the previous two. Iacocca links appeals to a medieval past by contemporary white nationalist groups to the Romantic period, specifically to the works of James Macpherson and his Ossianic ‘translations.’ She demonstrates how, by blending themes of martial strength and emotional depth, Macpherson popularized a heroic and sentimental Celtic past to promote a vision of Scottish and British identity. This ‘Ossianic medievalism’ profoundly influenced subsequent writers like Sir Walter Scott, Felicia Hemans, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, as well as Irish nationalists like W. B. Yeats, Constance Markievicz, and Patrick Pearse. Crucially, Iacocca shows how contemporary white nationalist groups use a similar strategy to fabricate a vision of the Middle Ages as a time of white Christian dominance and chivalry, which consequently allows them to frame contemporary issues like immigration as threats to an ‘inherent’ Western (European) identity.
But despite the alt-right’s predilection for medievalisms, Brenna Duperron’s essay reminds us that medievalisms can also operate as ideological refuges. She analyzes how the Arthurian trope of the ‘sword in the stone’ has been adapted in superhero films like Aquaman and Thor to address contemporary concerns about identity and social justice. For example, in Aquaman, the casting of Hawaiian actor Jason Momoa as Arthur Curry disrupts the traditional ‘whiteness’ associated with the Arthurian legend. By contrasting the whiteness of the Atlanteans with the visual alterity of Arthur Curry’s body—adorned with Indigenous Māori symbols—Duperron reminds us that ‘Indigeneity is a resistance,’[12] and shows how our knowledge production and reading practices can spark hope.
I am deeply grateful to the authors featured in this issue; it has been a privilege to read and discuss their work as their ideas developed. I challenged them to produce essays that were academically rigorous while also accessible to a wider audience, and they delivered. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the Arthuriana team, especially Arielle McKee, for their guidance, patience, and support. Creating TSW and arranging this crossover issue is not a no-risk venture. I am incredibly grateful for their trust.
Author Bio:
Jonathan F. Correa Reyes is an Assistant Professor of English at Clemson University. He holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from The Pennsylvania State University. His research explores formulations of race and race-thinking in medieval romances. He has publications forthcoming in Speculum, Postmedieval, and Viator. His research has been supported by the Ford Foundation. Jonathan is also a co-founder and co-producer of The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast
Notes:
[1] The Material Collective, ‘In Praise of Collectivity: Why Radical Solidarity Is Our Only Hope,’ in ‘Medieval Academy of America Centennial Issue,’ eds. Roland Betancourt and Karla Mallette, Speculum 100.1 (2025): 165-73 [155-77].
[2] Burkholder and Schaffer, Public Culture, pp. 55, 58, 64-7.
[3] Ali A. Olomi, ‘Medieval Worlds in a Digital Future,’ in ‘Medieval Academy of America Centennial Issue,’ ed. Roland Betancourt and Karla Mallette, Speculum 100.1 (2025): 191-4.
[4] Olomi, “Medieval Worlds,” 193.
[5] Many medievalists are actively modeling how we can strengthen our ties with the community by organizing public lectures; sharing lesson plans and facilitating K-12 workshops; creating open-access resources; digitizing manuscripts; curating museum exhibits; managing social media accounts like Medieval Art (@_medievalart) and Weird Medieval (@WeirdMedieval); podcasts (e.g. The Multicultural Middle Ages, Meeting in the Middle Ages, and Media-Eval: A Medieval Pop Culture Podcast); writing for public-facing forums such as In the Middle, Medievalists.net, and The Public Medievalist; and a wide array of Digital Humanities projects, to name a few.
[6] Referenced in Lomuto, ‘Belle da Costa Greene,’ 2 n. 1. See also Kathleen Biddick, The Shock of Medievalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998).
[7] Anna Wilson, ‘Medievalist Fandoms, Alternative Histories,’ in ‘Medieval Academy of America Centennial Issue,’ ed. Roland Betancourt and Karla Mallette, Speculum 100.1 (2025): 200 [200-2].
[8] See the Medieval Academy of America’s latest job-market update, which concludes that if nothing gives, ‘hiring in almost all fields of Medieval Studies has effectively disappeared.’
[9] Tarren Andrews, ‘Seeking a Radical Collaboration for the Future of Medieval Studies,’ in ‘Medieval Academy of America Centennial Issue,’ ed. Roland Betancourt and Karla Mallette, Speculum 100.1 (2025): 181 [180-1].
[10] Richards has recently discussed medieval theories of art making and sexuality discernible in the illuminations found in manuscripts of Ovide moralisé.
[11] Matthew Vernon, Cord Whitaker, Dorothy Kim, and Jonathan Hsy have shown how artists and communities of color have for a long time used medievalisms as sites in which to imagine and re-imagine forms of resistance. See Matthew X. Vernon, The Black Middle Ages: Race and the Construction of the Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); Matthew X. Vernon, ‘Whose Middle Ages? Remembering Early African-American Efforts to Reclaim the Past,’ The Public Medievalist, October 23, 2018, https://publicmedievalist.com/whose-middle-ages/; Cord J. Whitaker, ‘The Middle Ages in the Harlem Renaissance,’ in Whose Middle Ages? Teachable Moments for an Ill-Used Past, ed. Andrew Albin, Mary C. Erler, Thomas O’Donnell, Nicholas L. Paul, and Nina Rowe (New York: Fordham University Press, 2019): pp. 80-88; Dorothy Kim, ‘White Supremacists Have Weaponized an Imaginary Viking Past. It’s Time to Reclaim Real History,’ Time, April 12, 2019, https://time.com/5569399/viking-history-white-nationalists/; and Jonathan Hsy, Antiracist Medievalisms: From Yellow Peril to Black Lives Matter (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2021).
[12] Brenna Duperron and Elizabeth Edwards, ‘Thinking Indigeneity: A Challenge to Medieval Studies,’ Exemplaria 33.1 (2021): 94 [94-107].
