[MGSA-L] The Medieval times in modern Mystery novels

Vassilios Lambropoulos vlambrop at umich.edu
Thu Sep 1 03:13:11 PDT 2016


Newly posted video of a lecture co-sponsored by the Modern Greek Program at the University of Michigan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3rQT7UeCtA

Visually Demolished and Textually Reconstructed: 
The Middle Ages in Contemporary Crime Fiction


Panagiotis A. Agapitos, Professor of Byzantine Literature, University of Cyprus



Despite the growing interest in medievalist (re)constructions of the Middle Ages (e.g. in film, theater, and fiction), the image of the “Middle Ages” in contemporary crime fiction has not been studied at all despite the immense popularity of this subgenre of crime writing. This talk will take a look at this production that, more or less, began in the late 1970s and has grown into a vibrant industry encompassing a variety of periods from the 7th to the 15th century, mostly placed in England, but also in France, Germany, and Italy. An attempt will be made to recognize the narrative mechanisms of “medieval mystery novels,” their literary models; their ideological approaches to various medieval societies; and their depiction of violence, sex, power, and friendship. A brief look will be offered to crime fiction dealing with cultures outside the conventional frame of the (Western) Middle Ages, such as, China, Japan, and Byzantium. Ultimately, it will be proposed that the “new” Middle Ages of contemporary crime fiction are an exotic locus of intertextual and intervisual fantasy, rather than an academic archeological recostrunction of a clearly defined medieval past.
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