The copy of the King of Tars in the Auchinleck manuscript opens with a rare illustration, rare in that it’s in the manuscript at all…
Fredric Jameson’s chapter “On Interpretation: Literature as a Socially Symbolic Act” from his The Political Unconscious returns often, and surprisingly, to the Middle Ages. As he argues…
Here is sample presentation. Note that I quickly summarize Orlemanski’s argument, provide a key quote, and then connect her work to my own research interests,…
The Bibliothèque royale de Belgique in Brussels has newly posted many digitized manuscripts. This link might work. I poked at a manuscript of Jean Miélot’s…
Harrison Bergeron is Black. I don’t mean that the story says he is, explicitly. But it doesn’t say he’s white either. All we know about…
The new Emma film, by Autumn de Wilde, is notable for its two butts. As the first is Mr. Knightley’s, and the second Emma’s, we…
“You have turned us into great lovers of death”: Animals, Freedom, and Aristotle’s Book of the Apple
According to its 1968 translation, the earliest surviving version of the pseudo-Aristotelian Liber de Pomo is Arabic (by the 10th century, the Kitab al-Tuffahah). It…
Brother Hermann’s Life of the Countess Yolanda of Vianden [Bruder Hermanns Leben der Gräfin Iolande von Vianden] concerns the daughter of Henry I of Vianden…
This evening, I’m part of a pre-performance conversation for a play called Twelve Angry Animals, written by Reginald Rose. The talk’s at 6pm, and the…
