Hans Rudolf Velten - Böcker

Examines the development, nature, and significance of gritty (neo)medievalism in popular culture, from Assassins Creed: Valhalla and Berserk to Robert Eggers' The Northman.Twenty-first-century popular culture has a fascination for the medieval. Its imagery, tropes and settings have become an integral part of the epic fantasy genre across different media, demonstrated by and following the success of such globally acclaimed television shows as Game of Thrones and Vikings. This volume studies this phenomenon, aiming to establish a broader understanding of why the Middle Ages have become so popular in an era of transmedia productions; it argues that concepts of accuracy and "authenticity" are key to this popularity, alongside engagement with contemporary debates about identity, race and gender, and agile responses to fan-community and media critiques.The essays address a variety of topics, from worldbuilding and narrative structures to female agency and the reception of Vikings, across a wide range of media, including film, television, literature, video games and manga. It also explores how contemporary fantasy engages with both academic knowledge and developments in imagination more widely, responding to ever-changing ideas about how an "authentic" Middle Ages may be created.

The volume presents a collection of studies by internationally acknowledged medievalists on the phenomenon of laughter and its literary, social and emotional functions in the Middle Ages. The papers investigate the forms and representations of laughter in medieval literature and society and inquire into its role in the creation of communities and the depiction of figures in fictional texts.

The series Trends in Medieval Philology includes central topics of current research debates in medieval studies and provides a place for groundbreaking research in the field. It is intended to give international researchers/research teams the opportunity to effectively present innovative surveys and discussions to the scientific community. The series sees itself as a ‘young’ research forum with a high standard of quality and is therefore also open to excellent degree theses, should they enhance the series.

The series Trends in Medieval Philology includes central topics of current research debates in medieval studies and provides a place for groundbreaking research in the field. It is intended to give international researchers/research teams the opportunity to effectively present innovative surveys and discussions to the scientific community. The series sees itself as a ‘young’ research forum with a high standard of quality and is therefore also open to excellent degree theses, should they enhance the series.

Is the pícaro, the roguish hero of early modern Spanish adventure fiction, a 'real man'? What position does he hold in the gender hierarchy of his fictional social context? Why is the pícara so 'non-female'? What effect has her gender constitution on her fictional social context?In terms of a gendered subject, the picaresque figure has hardly been analyzed so far. Although scholars have recognized it as a transgressive and subversive model, the 'queer' effect of the figure is yet to be examined. With regard to the categories of class, generation, topography, and gender, the contributions assembled in this volume explore Spanish, French, English, and German novels narratologically from the perspective of culture and gender theories.

Fantasy novels are products of popular culture. They owe their popularity also to the visualization of medievalist artifacts on book covers and designs, illustrations, maps, and marketing: Castles on towering cliffs, cathedral-like architecture, armored heroes and enchanting fairies, fierce dragons and mages follow mythical archetypes and develop pictorial aesthetics of fantasy, completed by gothic fonts, maps and page layout that refer to medieval manuscripts and chronicles. The contributors to this volume explore the patterns and paradigms of a specific medievalist iconography and book design of fantasy which can be traced from the 19th century to the present.