Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching (SMART)
Spring 2024 (Volume 31, Issue 1)
In this next issue of SMART, Eileen M. Harney shares her expertise in teaching many upper-division and cross-listed English classes in which the Lucretia legend is used as a case study to adapt popular but thematically complicated legends. Stephanie L. Coker addresses teaching Joan of Arc outside the traditional classroom, sharing her experiences abroad, online during the pandemic, and in French film festivals. E Mariah Spencer provides the groundwork for teaching Beowulf to an increasing number of diverse students who encounter the text and its numerous translations, interpretations, and adaptations, and engaging them in comparative readings. Sherif Abdelkarim examines the state of Chaucer studies as a point of departure for thinking about studying premodern literature in comparative and international contexts, reporting on the experiences of scholars who have taught Chaucer in Egypt and presenting active learning methods that readers today might employ to revive the premodern text. Finally, through the Grail quest and the Arthurian legend, Ann Mcculough shares her response to students who feel that medieval texts are remote and do not have a place in their overall education, showing them that such texts can be quite impactful and an asset to their learning. The issue is rounded out by many book reviews.
EILEEN M. HARNEY Mapping Tragedy, Questioning Choices: Teaching the Legend of Lucretia
STEPHANIE L. COKER Joan of Arc as an Archetype: Teaching the Maid Abroad, Online, and in Film Festivals
E MARIAH SPENCER Grendel’s Mother: Considering Sex and Female Monstrosity in Beowulf
SHERIF ABDELKARIM Chaucer Unlimited, or Reading Chaucer Elsewhere
ANN MCCULLOUGH Teaching the Grail, or How to Speak about the Unspeakable
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JENNY REBECCA RYTTING Book Review: Women Intellectuals and Leaders in the Middle Ages, edited by Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis, and John Van Engen
CHRIS CRAUN Book Review: The Saxon War, by Bruno of Merseburg, translated by Bernard S. Bachrach and David S. Bachrach
RICHARD UTZ Book Review: Medievalism in Nineteenth-Century Belgium: The 1848 Monument to Godfrey of Bouillon, by Simon John
ROY HAMMERLING Book Review: A Cultural History of the Sword: Power, Piety, and Play, by Robert W. Jones
COREY J. ZWIKSTRA Book Review: Performance in Beowulf and Other Old English Poems, by Steven J. A. Breeze
WILLIAM J. COLLINGE Book Review: Saint Thomas Aquinas: Volume 1: The Person and His Work, by Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., translated by Matthew K. Minerd and Robert Royal
MICHAEL CALABRESE Book Review: Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century, by Jacqueline M. Burek
THOMAS CROFTS Book Review: Charlemagne in the Norse and Celtic Worlds, edited by Helen Fulton and Sif Rikhardsdottir
Fall 2024 (Volume 31, Issue 2)
This collection on teaching Thomas Hoccleve is long overdue. The essays herein provide incredibly versatile subject matter for instructors of medieval language, literature, and history at any level to explore. They reveal Hoccleve’s autobiographical confessions of recovery and rehabilitation, political savvy, and ideals of leadership. Using such a Middle English text attunes students to how language works and enables them to find Hoccleve’s troubles remarkably empathetic and ripe for exploration in researched projects and presentations that build classroom community. Teaching this poet reveals how the human anxieties that Hoccleve addresses are quite relevant to today’s students and circumstances and helps them gain perspective, spurring them to evaluate their own relationships to authority and to expand their civic obligation. This collection seeks to remedy the disparity of very few resources aimed specifically at teaching the works of Thomas Hoccleve.
MISTY SCHIEBERLE AND ELON LANG Introduction: Teaching Thomas Hoccleve
SEBASTIAN LANGDELL 13 Ways of Looking at Hoccleve (in the Classroom)
ARWEN TAYLOR Hoccleve and Holograph in the History of the English Language
MISTY SCHIEBERLE Teaching Hoccleve’s Letter of Cupid and Gender Debate
STEPHANIE TRIGG On Not Knowing Where to Look: Teaching Hoccleve under Pandemic Conditions
RUEN-CHUAN MA Hoccleve’s Series: Building a Critical Foundation for Teaching Research Writing
ELON LANG Ideals of Leadership: Teaching Hoccleve’s Regiment of Princes as an Exemplar of Medieval Ethics and Governance Instruction in a "Great Books" Context
DAVID WATT Games & Thrones: From Thomas Hoccleve’s Regiment of Princes to George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire
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LESLEY COOTE Book Review: The New Reynard: Three Satires, translated by Nigel Bryant
BRIAN HARRIES Book Review: Literatures of Alchemy in Medieval and Early Modern England, by Eoin Bentick
YVONNE BRUCE Book Review: Philosophy in the Renaissance: An Anthology, edited by Paul Richard Blum and James G. Snyder
SUSAN KENDRICK Book Review: The Broadview Anthology of Tudor Drama, edited by Alan Stewart
CARY NEDERMAN Book Review: Traditions of Natural Law in Medieval Philosophy, edited by Dominic Farrell
ROBERT BRAID Book Review: Death and Disease in the Medieval and Early Modern World, edited by Lori Jones and Nühket Varlık
BRIGITTE ROUSSEL Book Review: Anne de Graville and Women’s Literary Networks in Early Modern France, by Elizabeth L’Estrange
EDWARD JOHN CHRISTIE Book Review: Old English Medievalism: Reception and Recreation in the 20th and 21st Centuries, edited by Rachel A. Fletcher, Thijs Porck, and Oliver M. Traxel
Both Spring and Fall 2024 issues of SMART are included in the yearly subscription price of $30 for individuals, $35 for libraries and centers, and $40 for subscriptions outside of the United States. Prepayment is required. SMART subscription information and an order form can be accessed by clicking on IN THIS SECTION (above).
Back issues of SMART are available for $20 each (domestic mailing) or $25 each (foreign mailing). Prepayment is required. A list of SMART back issues and an order form can be accessed by clicking on IN THIS SECTION (above).
Please share information on the SMART journal with friends, colleagues, and libraries, alerting them to the wide contribution that this publication makes to Middle Ages and Renaissance pedagogy. We are always interested in new submissions, either individual papers or collections of essays around a theme. If you have a project that you think might be suitable for SMART, please let us know.
Thank you for reading SMART.
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The Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Wichita State University continues to fund and support the mission of SMART by providing readers with quality pedagogical instruction.