Religious Studies
[PAST EVENT] Richard Coer de Lyon and the Necessity of 'Political' Scholarship
This talk focuses on the late medieval romance Richard Coer de Lyon and the hows and whys of it's depiction of Richard as a licit monster. It explores several critical moments in the text itself, in the spirit not only of acquainting audiences with the ideological underpinnings of this work but also to demonstrate how, contrary to conventional wisdom, it is in fact not only possible but sometimes necessary to allow current socio-political exigencies to help us in our interpretive work.
Leila K. Norako '04 is an Associate Professor of English at The University of Washington and a William & Mary alum (she double-majored in English and Medieval Studies). She specializes in late medieval English literature and culture, with a focus on romance and the impact of the crusades on the cultural landscape of medieval England. Her work has appeared in Chaucer Review, Literature Compass, and postmedieval, and her book Monstrous Fantasies: England's Crusading Imaginary and the Romance of Recovery, was published this past August through Cornell UP. She is the director and co-creator of The Richard Coer de Lyon Multitext project, and a member of the blogging team at In the Middle (which is in the process of reviving itself). Her current projects include an article on the erasure of Mongol languages in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, and an article on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight's implicit invitations to imagine queer futures.
Sponsored by: Medieval & Renaissance Studies Program