Whose Middle Ages? is an interdisciplinary collection of short, accessible essays intended for the nonspecialist reader and ideal for teaching at an undergraduate level. Each of twenty-two essays takes up an area where digging for meaning in the medieval past has brought something distorted back into the present: in our popular entertainment; in our news, our politics, and our propaganda; and in subtler ways that inform how we think about our histories, our countries, and ourselves. Each author looks to a history that has refused to remain past and uses the tools of the academy to read and re-read familiar stories, objects, symbols, and myths.Whose Middle Ages? gives nonspecialists access to the richness of our historical knowledge while debunking damaging misconceptions about the medieval past. Myths about the medieval period are especially beloved among the globally resurgent far right, from crusading emblems on the shields borne by alt-right demonstrators to the on-screen image of a purely white European populace defended from actors of color by Internet trolls. This collection attacks these myths directly by insisting that readers encounter the relics of the Middle Ages on their own terms.Each essay uses its author's academic research as a point of entry and takes care to explain how the author knows what she or he knows and what kinds of tools, bodies of evidence, and theoretical lenses allow scholars to write with certainty about elements of the past to a level of detail that might seem unattainable. By demystifying the methods of scholarly inquiry, Whose Middle Ages? serves as an antidote not only to the far right's errors of fact and interpretation but also to its assault on scholarship and expertise as valid means for the acquisition of knowledge.

IntroductionDavid Perry | 1Part I - StoriesThe Invisible PeasantrySandy Bardsley | 14The Hidden Narratives of Medieval ArtKatherine Anne Wilson | 23Modern Intolerance and the Medieval CrusadesNicholas L. Paul | 34Blood Libel, a Lie and Its LegaciesMagda Teter | 44Who's Afraid of Shari'a Law?Fred M. Donner | 58How Do We Find Out About Immigrants in Later Medieval England?W. Mark Ormrod | 69The Middle Ages in the Harlem RenaissanceCord J. Whitaker | 80Part II - OriginsThree Ways of Misreading Thomas Jefferson's Qur'anRyan Szpiech | 94The Nazi Middle AgesWilliam J. Diebold | 104What Would Benedict Do?Lauren Mancia | 116No, People in the Middle East Haven't Been Fighting Since the Beginning of TimeStephennie Mulder | 127Ivory and the Ties That BindSarah M. Guérin | 140Blackness, Whiteness, and the Idea of Race in Medieval European ArtPamela A. Patton | 154England Between Empire and Nation in "The Battle of Brunanburh"Elizabeth M. Tyler | 166Whose Spain Is It, Anyway?David A. Wacks | 181Part III - #HashtagsModern Knights, Medieval Snails, and Naughty NunsMarian Bleeke | 196Charting Sexuality and Stopping SinAndrew Reeves | 208"Celtic" Crosses and the Myth of WhitenessMaggie M. Williams | 220Whitewashing the "Real" Middle Ages in Popular MediaHelen Young | 233Real Men of the Viking AgeWill Cerbone | 243#DeusVultAdam M. Bishop | 256Own Your HeresyJ. Patrick Hornbeck II | 265Afterword: Medievalists and the Education of DesireGeraldine Heng | 275AppendixesAppendix I: Possibilities for Teaching-by Genre | 293Appendix II: Possibilities for Teaching-by Course Theme | 296List of Contributors | 301