The United States of Medievalism

Description

The United States of Medievalism contemplates the desires, dreams, and contradictions inherent in experiencing the Middle Ages in a nation that is so temporally, spatially, and at times politically removed from them. The European Middle Ages have long influenced the national landscape of the United States through the medieval sites that permeate its self-announced republican landscapes and cities. Today, American-built medievalisms continue to shape the nation’s communities, collapsing the binaries between past and present, medieval and modern, European and American. The volume’s chapters visit the nation’s many medieval-inspired spaces, from Sherwood Forest in Texas to California’s San Andreas Fault. Stops are made in New York City’s churches, Boston’s gardens, Philadelphia’s Bryn Athyn Cathedral, Orlando’s Magic Kingdom, Appalachian highways, Minnesota’s Viking Villages, New Orleans’s Mardi Gras, and the Las Vegas Strip. As the editors and their fellow essayists take the reader on this cross-country trip across the United States, they ponder the cultural work done by the nation’s medievalized spaces. In its exploration of a seemingly distant period, this collection challenges the underexamined legacy of medievalism on the western side of the Atlantic. Full of intriguing case studies and reflections, this book is informative reading for anyone interested in the contemporary vestiges of the Middle Ages. Cover Page i Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Theorizing America’s Medievalisms Part One: Building the American Middle Ages 1 Translatio Horti: Medievalized Gardens in Boston and Cambridge 2 Philadelphia’s Medieval(ist) Jewels: Bryn Athyn Cathedral, Glencairn, and More 3 The Masonic Medievalism of Washington, DC 4 Medieval Chicago: Architecture, Patronage, and Capital at the Fin de Siècle Part Two: Living in the American Middle Ages 5 Three Vignettes and a White Castle: Knighthood and Race in Modern Atlanta 6 Medieval New York City: A Walk through The Stations of the Cross 7 Minnesota Medieval: Dragons, Knights, and Runestones 8 “I Yearned for a Strange Land and a People That Had the Charm of Originality”: Searching for Salvation in Medieval Appalachia 9 Wounded Landscapes: Topographies of Franciscan Spirituality and Deep Ecology in California Medievalism Part Three: Playing in the American Middle Ages 10 Orlando’s Medieval Heritage Project 11 Saints and Sinners: New Orleans’s Medievalisms 12 Sherwood Forest Faire: Evoking Medieval May Games, Robin Hood Revels, and Twentieth-Century “Pleasure Faires” in Contemporary Texas 13 Las Vegas: Getting Medieval in Sin City Selected Bibliography List of Contributors Index