Karl Fugelso 
Studies in Medievalism XXVII 
Authenticity, Medievalism, Music

Essays tackling the difficult but essential question of how medievalism studies should look at the issue of what is and what is not ‘authentic’.


Given the impossibility of completely recovering the past, the issue of authenticity is clearly central to scholarship on postmedieval responses to the Middle Ages. The essays in the first part of this volume address authenticitydirectly, discussing the 2017 Middle Ages in the Modern World conference; Early Gothic themes in nineteenth-century British literature; medievalism in the rituals of St Agnes; emotions in
Game of Thrones; racism in Disney’s Middle Ages; and religious medievalism. The essayists’ conclusions regarding authenticity then inform, even as they are tested by, the subsequent papers, which consider such matters as medievalism in contemporary French populism; nationalism in re-enactments of medieval battles; postmedieval versions of the
Kingis Quair; Van Gogh’s invocations of Dante; Surrealist medievalism; chant in video games; music in cinematic representations of the Black Death; and sound in Aleksei German’s film
Hard to Be a God.


Karl Fugelso is Professor of Art History at Towson University in Baltimore, Maryland.


Contributors: Aida Audeh, Tessel Bauduin, Matthias Berger, Karen Cook, Timothy Curran, Nickolas Haydock, Alexander Kolassa, Carolyne Larrington, David Matthews, E.J. Pavlinich, Lotte Reinbold, Clare Simmons, Adam Whittaker, Daniel Wollenberg.

Table of Content

Introduction: Medievalism as Colony and Conqueror: Reflections after MAMO – David Matthews

Genealogies of the Early Gothic: Forging Authenticity – Nickolas Haydock

The Rituals of St. Agnes and the Lure of Authenticity – Clare A Simmons

Mediating Medieval(ized) Emotions in
Game of Thrones – Carolyne Larrington

A Princess of Color amid Whitewashed Medievalisms in Disney’s
Sofia the First and
Elena of Avalor – Elan Justice (E J) Pavlinich

The Medievalizing Process: Religious Medievalism and Constructs of Historical Authenticity – Timothy Curran

The Breaking Point: Alain de Benoist’s Critique of Medieval Nominalism – Daniel Wollenberg

‘This Most Historic of Locations’: Performing Authentic Nationhood at Hastings and Morgarten – Matthias Berger

Kingdoms of Infinite Space: Three Responses to the
Kingis Quair – Lotte Reinbold

Vincent van Gogh, Dante, and the Studio of the South – Aida Audeh

Surrealist Medievalism: A Case Study – Tessel Bauduin

Introduction to Part III

Beyond (the) Halo: Chant in Video Games – Karen Cook

A Plague of Medievalism upon You All: Medievalism, Music, and the Plague – Adam Whittaker

The Past is a Different Planet: Sounding Medievalism in Aleksei German’s
Hard to Be a God – Alexander Kolassa

About the author

Matthias D. Berger holds a Ph D in English from the University of Bern and is currently training to be a teacher.