trying out tumblr

http://medievalista.tumblr.com Not much there yet, but more to come. I'm hoping tumblr will work better for the images I want to share.

digitized medieval manuscripts

Another useful source from digital medievalist. http://digitizedmedievalmanuscripts.org/ This maps digitized manuscripts, allowing one to find all the digitized sources in a region, with links to the libraries. So much more intuitive than trying to go lists of cities. It seems like a wonderful tool for graduate students beginning to look at medieval sources. Also, it can be constantly updated by groupsourcing.

imagining the apocalypse

Some images from my recent lecture on the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages

breathtaking

Why didn't I see this before my lectures on medieval architecture?

The Vatican and Oxford University are digitizing manuscripts

this is truly an exciting venture, with so many potential benefits. I might never leave my computer again.

Beowulf - Grendel's Ambush - Bagby

http://www.youtube.com/v/E806VmFC8io?version=3&autohide=1&feature=share&autoplay=1&autohide=1&attribution_tag=12NdIhFCQEC-DG1_HalVxA&showinfo=1

 Part of Benjamin Bagby's performance of Beowulf.  Very interesting and entertaining.  Lovely to have him on campus. 

laramie project and the formation of a persecuting society at ole miss

Recently at University of Mississippi, a student production of the Laramie Project was interrupted when members of the audience began yelling homophobic slurs and other insults at the cast. Although the university administration reacted responsibly, the student body appears to have been virtually unmoved by this event. Why such an apathetic response? Perhaps it is because of the students themselves: they are not engaged, they are more interested in rush, they don't want to make waves... Or perhaps it is because most of them were raised in an atmosphere that either marginalized or denounced homosexuals. Even if the students wouldn't personally have shouted insults, they did not want to be seen defending homosexuals. Even if they have not yet decided their own beliefs about homosexuality, they felt too much ambivalence and discomfort to openly support it. Coincidentally, my class on the Early and High Middle Ages was also reading The Formation of a Persecuting Society, by R.I. Moore. This book details the increased persecution of three marginal groups in the Middle Ages: Jews, heretics, and lepers. It traces the way narratives were created around these groups that emphasized their malignancy, spiritual degeneracy, and potential to spread. These narratives combined biblical explication, folklore, the patristic writings of the Church fathers, and science. They resemble at several points contemporary narratives regarding homosexuality, and its potential threat to the moral and physical health of our society, from destroying families to spreading AIDS. The power of the narrative to create feelings of fear and discomfort is also the same. As I attempted to point this out to my students, the blank stares I received in response informed me that while unjust oppression is extremely easy to see from a distance, it is much more difficult to recognize in one's own life.