Arthurian Literature for 2010

Publisher D. S. Brewer has recently released an all Malory issue of the annual Arthurian Literature. Unfortunately, the contributors are not listed online, but other details are as follows:

Arthurian Literature XXVIII
Spec. Issue: Blood, Sex, Malory: Essays on the Morte Darthur
Edited by David Clark and Kate McClune.

First Published: 20 Oct 2011
13 Digit ISBN: 9781843842811
Pages: 214
Size: 23.4 x 15.6
Binding: Hardback
Imprint: D.S.Brewer

Sex, blood, and gender have diverse associations in the Malorian tradition, yet their inter-relatedness and intersections are comparatively understudied. This present collection of essays is intended to go some way toward remedying the need for a sustained examination of blood ties, kinship, gender, and sexuality, and the prominence of these themes in Malory's work. They concentrate in particular upon the analyses of sexuality and sexual activity (and its lack or erasure) and the significance of blood (and blood-shedding) in the Morte Darthur, as well as the interconnections with gender (biological sex) and familial ("blood") relations in the Morte, its sources and its later reworkings. The result is a wide-ranging investigation into related but distinctive thematic preoccupations, including the national and kinship affiliations of Malorian knights, sibling relationships, deviant sexuality, and blood-spilling in martial and intimate contexts.

Contents
1 Preface
2 Reading Malory's Bloody Bedrooms
3 [Dis]Figuring Transgressive Desire: Blood, Sex, and Stained Sheets in Malory's Morte Darthur
4 Bewmaynes: The Threat from the Kitchen
5 Sibling Relations in Malory's Morte Darthur
6 'Traytoures' and 'Treson': the Language of Treason in the Works of Sir Thomas Malory
7 'The Vengeaunce of My Brethirne': Blood Ties in Malory's Morte Darthur
8 Malory and the Scots
9 Blood, Faith and Saracens in 'The Book of Sir Tristram'
10 Barriers Unbroken: Sir Palomydes the Saracen in 'The Book of Sir Tristram'
11 Virginity, Sexuality, Repression and Return in the 'Tale of the Sankgreal'
12 Launcelot in Compromising Positions: Fabliau in Malory's 'Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake'

Arthuriana for Fall 2011

The latest issue of Arthuriana was recently released to print and digital subscribers (it is also available on Project Muse to those with access to the service). The issue is devoted to medieval Arthuriana, but the reviews include some comments on modern adaptions of the legend. Contents are as follows:

Arthuriana 21.3 (Fall 2011)

The Failure of Justice, The Failure of Arthur
Laura K. Bedwell 3

Longevity and the Loathly Ladies in Three Medieval Romances
Sandy Feinstein 23

Salvage Anthropology and Displaced Mourning in the Lais of Marie de France
Shirin Azizeh Khanmohamadi 49

Malory's Marginalia Reconsidered
James Wade 70

The Round Table 87 [a report from the IAS Triennial Congress this past summer]


REVIEWS

Mark Adderely, The Hawk and the Cup 91
Ann Howey

Laura Ashe, Ivana Djordjevic, and Judith Weiss, eds., The Exploitations of Medieval Romance 92
Myra Seaman

Barbara Tepa Lupack, The Girls' King Arthur: Tales of the Women of Camelot 95
Amy S. Kaufman

Molly Martin, Vision and Gender in Malory's Morte Darthur 96
Kenneth Hodges

Lancelot Grail:The Old French Arhturian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Translation. Parts I and II 98
Joan Tasker Grimbert

Hanks on Tolkien and Malory

I came across the following essay earlier today:

Hanks, D. Thomas, Jr. “ ‘A Far Green Country Under a Swift Sunrise’—Tolkien’s Eucastastrophe and Malory’s ‘Morte Darthur'.” Fifteenth-Century Studies 36 (2011): 49-64.

Excerpts are available on Amazon and through Google Books, and, through them, one can see that Hanks' offers an insightful reassessment of Malory's final book based on Tolkien's theories of narrative presented in the essay "On Fairy Stories." This is definitely something to track down and read the full version. 

Michael Torregrossa

Kalamazoo Roundtable on Arthurian Film and TV

Finalized details on our co-sponsored roundtable on Arthurian film and television can now be viewed at the Are Your From Camelot? blog.

Arthurian Stories for Kids (and the Young at Heart)

The BBC website features a series of four Arthurian stories as part of their Wales History section as follows:

"Morgana's Secret Island" (two modern-day kids met Morgan le Fay and visit Avalon)

"Sabrina's Mountain Adventure" (a modern-day girl travels to the Arthurian past and interacts with Cai and Bedwyr)

"Becoming Merlin" (a retelling of Merlin's coming into his powers)

"Guinevere's Wedding" (an account of Guinevere's first meeting with King Arthur)

The stories are accompanied by a series of games related to the four stories, and both the stories and games are also available in Welsh. In addition, the website also includes a selection of stories adapted from the Mabinogion (including the Arthurian tales), but these (as far as I can determine) are only available in Welsh at this time.

Arthuriana 21.1

I seem to have missed posting this earlier in the year (the journal is available in print and online to subscribers only):

Arthuriana 21.1
Table of Contents

Special Issue on Renaissance Arthurian Literature and C. S. Lewis
Guest edited by Ty Buckman and Charles Ross

An Arthurian Omaggio to Michael Murrin and James Nohrnberg
Ty Buckman and Charles Ross 3

Spenser and the Search for Asian Silk
Michael Murrin 7

The Mythical Method in Song, Saga, Prose and Verse: Part One
James C. Nohrnberg 20

'Arthurian Torsos' and Professor Nohrnberg's Unrepeatable Experiment
Ty Buckman 39

Arthuriana and the Limits of C. S. Lewis' Ariosto Marginalia
Charles Ross 46

Merlin, Magic, and the Meta-fantastic: The Matter of That Hideous Strength 66
Thomas L. Martin

Corcodiles and Crusades: Egypt in Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato and Ariosto's Orlando Furioso 85
Jo Ann Cavallo

Delay the War but Not the Sex: Boiardo on Action and Time 97
Brady J. Spangenberg


REVIEWS

Karen Cherewatuk and K. S. Whetter, eds., The Arthurian Way of Death: The English Tradition
Keith Busby 110

Elizabeth Archibald and Ad Putter, eds, The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend
Alex Mueller 111

Curt Columbus, dir. 'Lerner & Loewe's Camelot'
Kevin J. Harty 113

Rosalind Field, Phillipa Hardman and Michelle Sweeney, eds., Christianity and Romance in Medieval England
Thomas H. Crofts 114

Helen Fulton, ed., A Companion to Arthurian Literature
Jane H. M. Taylor 116

Harry Potter Studies from Edwin Mellen

Edwin Mellen Press has a long history with publishing Arthurian studies, and I just came across this book earlier in the month. A number of the essays (in red) reference parallels between the series and the Arthurian story, and the final essay by Perry offers a detailed analysis linking Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to the Arthurian novels of T. H. White.

Scholarly Studies in Harry Potter: Applying Academic Methods to a Popular Text
Hallett, Cynthia Whitney , editor
Series: Studies in British Literature Number: 99

ISBN10: 0-7734-6010-1 ISBN13: 978-0-7734-6010-2 Pages: 300 Year: 2005
Imprint: Edwin Mellen Press
USA List Price: $109.95 UK List Price: £ 69.95

This book is intended primarily for an academic audience, especially scholars – students and teachers – doing research and publication in categories such as myth and legend, children’s literature, and the Harry Potter series in particular. Additionally, it is meant for college and university teachers. However, the essays do not contain jargon that would put off an avid “lay” Harry Potter fan. Overall, this collection is an excellent addition to the growing analytical scholarship on the Harry Potter series; however, it is the first academic collection to offer practical methods of using Rowling’s novels in a variety of college and university classroom situations.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction – Serious Scholarship and Academic Hocus Pocus: Conjuring Harry Potter into the Canon (Cynthia Whitney Hallet)
1. Educating Harry Potter: A Muggle’s Perspective on Magic and Knowledge in the Wizard World of J. K. Rowling (Sarah E. Maier)
2. Harry Potter and the Temporal Prime Directive: Time Travel, Rule-Breaking, and Misapprehension in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Ron W. Cooley)
3. If yeh know where to go: Vision and Mapping in the Wizarding World (Jonathan P. Lewis)
4. A Basilisk, a Phoenix, and a Philosopher’s Stone: Harry Potter’s Myths and Legends (Peggy J. Huey)
5. Death and Rebirth: Harry Potter & the Mythology of the Phoenix (Sarah E. Gibbons)
6. The Harlequin in the Weasley Twins: Jesters in the Court of Prince Harry (and J. K. Rowling) (Rebecca Whitus Longster)
7. Lessons in Transfiguration: Allegories of Male Identity in Rowling’s Harry Potter Series (Casey Cothran)
– Conjuring Harry Potter into the Canon
8. Reading J. K. Rowling Magically: Creating C. S. Lewis’s “Good Reader” (Ernelle Fife)
9. The Problem of Identity in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Leigh A. Neithardt)
10. Of Young Magicians and Growing Up: J. K. Rowling, Her Critics, and the “Cultural Infantilism” Debate (Steve Barfield)
11. High-Brow Harry Potter: J. K. Rowling’s Series as College-Level Literature (Laura Baker Shearer)
12. Hogwarts vs. “The Values’ Wasteland”: Harry Potter and the Formation of Character (William Wandless)
13. Metaphor and MetaFantasy: Questing for Literary Inheritance in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Evelyn M. Perry)
About the Contributors
Afterword

New Book on Robert Holdstock

The Mythic Fantasy of Robert Holdstock: Critical Essays on the Fiction

Edited by Donald E. Morse and Kalman Matolcsy
Series Editors Donald E. Palumbo and C.W. Sullivan III
Foreword by Brian Aldiss

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-4942-2
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8521-5
notes, bibliography, index
202pp. softcover 2011
Price: $35.00

About the Book
Robert Holdstock was a prolific writer whose oeuvre included horror, fantasy, mystery and the novelization of films, often published under pseudonyms. These twelve critical essays explore Holdstock’s varied output by displaying his works against the backdrop of folk and fairy tales, dissecting their spatiotemporal order, and examining them as psychic fantasies of our unconscious life or as exempla of the sublime. The individual novels of the Mythago Wood sequence are explored, as is Holdstock’s early science fiction and the Merlin Codex series.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi
Foreword: Under the Spell of a Magician
BRIAN W. ALDISS 1
Introduction: Mythago Wood—“A Source of Visions and Adventure”
DONALD E. MORSE 3

Part One: Approaches
1. The Embodiment of Abstraction in the Mythago Novels
W. A. SENIOR 13
2. Masks in the Forest: The Dynamics of Surface and Depth in the Mythago Cycle
KÁLMÁN MATOLCSY 26
3. Exploring the Habitats of Myths: The Spatiotemporal Structure of Ryhope Wood
STEFAN EKMAN 46

Part Two: The Novels
4. Time Winds: Early Science Fiction
ANDY SAWYER 67
5. Profusion Sublime and the Fantastic: Mythago Wood
MAREK OZIEWICZ 81
6. Tallis, the Feminine Presence in Mythago Wood: Lavondyss: Journey to an Unknown Region
ELIZABETH A. WHITTINGHAM 96
7. Embedded Narratives in Lavondyss and Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness
VERA BENCZIK 114
8. Stories to Illuminate Truth and Lies to Hide Pain: Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn
DONALD E. MORSE 129
9. “A Heap of Broken Images”—The Mythological Wasteland of the Mind: The Hollowing and Ancient Echoes
ILDIKÓ LIMPÁR 141
10. “So many names in so many tongues...”: Allusive Mythology in Celtika
C. W. SULLIVAN III 156
11. Thresholds, Polders, and Crosshatches in the Merlin Codex
TOM SHIPPEY 165

Robert Holdstock Bibliography 177
About the Contributors 183
Index 187

About the Author
Donald E. Morse is a professor at the University of Debrecen, in Hungary, and is an emeritus professor at the University of Oakland in Michigan. He is the author of a dozen books and over 100 scholarly articles. Kalman Matolcsy is a translator, poet, composer, and a professor at the University of Debrecen. He has written numerous scholarly articles on the literature of horror, fantasy and science fiction. Donald E. Palumbo is a professor of English at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. He lives in Greenville. C.W. Sullivan III is a professor of arts and sciences at East Carolina University and a full member of the Welsh Academy. He is the author of numerous books and the on-line journal Celtic Cultural Studies.

CFP: The Return of King Arthur in the Post-Medieval World (12/1/11; Plymouth, NH 4/20-21/12)

ONCE AND FUTURE KINGS?
THE RETURN OF KING ARTHUR IN THE POST-MEDIEVAL WORLD
Session Sponsored by The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages
For the 33rd Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum
Plymouth State University (Plymouth, NH)
20-21 April 2011
Proposals by 12/1/11

According to legend, Merlin once prophesied that King Arthur would not die but come again and aid us in our darkest days. In fulfillment of this prophecy, Arthur and his surrogates have returned many times in fictional texts, and, although Arthur himself has failed to return in the flesh in the real world, we continue to believe in the legend of the Once and Future King and have often invoked it in times of crisis. Still, while the motif of Arthur redivivus remains a popular component of the modern intermedia Matter of Britain, few studies have addressed why this particular aspect of Arthurian myth has remained relevant in the post-medieval era. It is our intention to explore this neglected area of Arthurian Studies in this sponsored session.

For “Once and Future Kings? The Return of King Arthur in the Post-medieval World,” we are especially interested in studies that look at the invocation of the legend of the Once and Future King during flash points in history (like times of war and national crises) as these suggest the most vital components of its reception history, but we also hope that presenters will explore other uses of the motif in diverse genres and media from the close of the Middle Ages to the present day.

No later that 1 December 2011, interested individuals should submit full contact information (name, address, phone/cell, and email), paper titles, and abstracts of 300-500 words to the session organizers, who will then forward them to the conference committee. Address all inquiries and proposals to the organizers at the following address: Popular.Culture.and.the.Middle.Ages@gmail.com and include “Once and Future Kings” in the subject line.

Arthurian Studies at PCA/ACA

There were a number of Arthurian-themed sessions at last month's Joint Conference of the National Popular Culture & American Culture Association and the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture & American Culture Association held in San Antonio, Texas, from 4/20-23/11. Unfortunately, I cannot copy and paste from the PDF version of the program to list these sessions. The complete program can be accessed at http://pcaaca.org/conference/conf_program.php. Most of the sessions are listed under the Arthurian Legends Area.