This short book offers a series of thought experiments and invites Shakespeareans to rediscover the wonders and pleasures of fandom. It does not argue that comic books and movies can or should replace Shakespeare; the goal is to explore the values in both, to think of comics as allusively Shakespearean, telling similar stories, expressing similar concerns, exploring similar values. Shakespeare and Superheroes seeks to re-democratize criticism by encouraging all readers to engage in and to respond to literary arguments using their own common cultural language.

This book proposes a long view of Byzantium, one that begins in the early Roman empire and extends all the way to the modern period. It is a provocative thought-experiment which posits Byzantium as the most stable and enduring form of Greco-Roman society, forming a sturdy bridge between antiquity and the early modern period, as well as between East and West, and which sees the ancient Greek, Roman, and Christian traditions as flowing together. It offers a Byzantium unbound by other cultures and fields of study that would artificially cut it down to size.

<div>This book offers a groundbreaking perspective on Judeo-Christian coexistence in medieval Spain, in particular on the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James), one of the most important pilgrimage routes in Europe. The author uncovers new evidence of Judeo-Christian cooperation in Castilian monasteries on the Camino. It reveals that a collaborative climate endured in these monasteries as demonstrated by the transmission of <I>cuaderna vía</I> poetry from Christians to Jews.</div>

In medieval culture, media forms were placesof mediated immediacy. They transported apresence of the divine, but also knowledge ofits unattainability. This volume investigates the multi-layered and fascinatingapproaches of medieval authors to the wordand writing, the body and materiality, andtheir experimentation with the possibilitiesof media before the concept was invented.The book presents, for the first time, acoherent, tightly argued history of medievalmediality, which also casts a new light onmodern thinking about the medial.

This book explores the dissemination of ideas and information on the early silk roads between Europe and China, through the first detailed study of the Sinicization of foreign objects in Chinese poetic writing of the third century CE. Third-century literary developments and the prevailing literary works from that era leave us with an impressive amount of information concerning exotic objects, such as plants, animals, and crafts, and record the cultural exchange between distant peoples whose goods, ideas, and technologies entered China. These hitherto-forgotten rhapsodies express the profound interest and excitement of learned men for foreign objects. They bear witness to the cultural exchanges between China and other civilizations and provide a more nuanced insight of early medieval China as an integrated society rather than an isolated one.

This collaborative collection provides fresh perspectives on Christianity and the conduct of war in medieval East Central Europe and Scandinavia, investigating the intersection between religion, culture, and warfare in territories that were only integrated into Christendom in the Central Middle Ages. The contributors analyze cultures that lay outside Charlemagne's limes and the frontiers of the Byzantine Empire, to consider a region stretching from the Balkans to the Baltic and Scandinavia. The volume considers clerics as military leaders and propagandists, the role of Christian ritual and doctrine in warfare, and the adaptation and transformation of indigenous military cultures. It uncovers new information on perceptions of war and analyzes how local practices were incorporated into clerical narratives, enabling the reader to achieve a complete understanding of the period.

The Peace of God was one of the most important movements of the Middle Ages, yet is highly contested. It has been seen as both radically innovative and fundamentally traditional; as millenarian and not millenarian; as a popular movement and as a way of consolidating power for the elites. Geoffrey Koziol argues for the validity of all these differing viewpoints, because specific instantiations of the Peace of God varied greatly, and there were inherent contradictions in early ideas of peace and peace-making.

The Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jews) have a unique history and religious tradition, one of the most fascinating aspects of which are the mäloksočč, commonly referred to as monks in scholarly and popular literature. The mäloksočč served as the supreme religious leaders of the Betä Ǝsraʾel and were charged with educating and initiating Betä Ǝsraʾel priests. They lived in separate compounds and observed severe purity laws prohibiting physical contact with the laity. Thus, they are the only known example in medieval and modern Jewry of ascetic communities withdrawing from the secular world and devoting themselves fully to religious life. This book presents the results of the first comprehensive research ever conducted on the way of life and material culture of the ascetic religious communities of the Betä Ǝsraʾel. A major part of this research is an archaeological survey, during which these religious centres were located and documented in detail for the first time.

<div>This beautifully illustrated book provides an accessible introduction to the medieval manuscript and what it can tell us about the world in which it was made and used. <i>Books Before Print</i> explores how manuscripts can act as a vibrant and versatile tool to understand the deep historical roots of human interaction with written information. It highlights extraordinary continuities between medieval book culture and modern-world communication, as witnessed in medieval pop-up books, posters, speech bubbles, book advertisements, and even sticky notes.</div>