{"405311":{"#nid":"405311","#data":{"type":"external_news","title":"Utz\u0027s Research on Medievalism Featured by WMU Press","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.iac.gatech.edu\/faculty-and-staff\/faculty\/bio\/utz\u0022\u003ERichard Utz\u003C\/a\u003E, professor and chair of the \u003Cstrong\u003ESchool of Literature, Media, and Communication\u003C\/strong\u003E, delivered one of two plenary lectures at the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/wmich.edu\/medieval\/congress\/\u0022\u003E50th International Congress on Medieval Studies\u003C\/a\u003E, hosted at Western Michigan University May 14 - 17. His participation was cited at length on\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/wmuk.org\/post\/50th-medieval-congress-celebrates-congresses-past\u0022\u003EWMUK\u003C\/a\u003E, a charter member of NPR, as well as in the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.westernherald.com\/arts_and_entertainment\/article_ad8cbcbe-f7fd-11e4-8982-bb4a8334f062.html\u0022\u003EWestern Herald\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUtz\u0027s plenary lecture was mentioned on WMUK by James Murray, director of the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/wmich.edu\/medieval\/\u0022\u003EMedieval Institute\u003C\/a\u003E, as a talk he was looking forward to attending in particular.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne of our plenary speakers, our Saturday speaker Richard Utz, I\u2019m looking forward to particularly, since he was until a few years ago the chair of the English department and now he\u2019s at Georgia Tech. He\u2019s coming back to talk on Saturday morning about the notion of the Middle Ages, \u2018Our Middle Ages Ourselves,\u2019\u0026nbsp; and about how the dialogue between the modern age and the medieval age has been shaped and in fact how it still captivates our imaginations and sometimes our nightmares. I\u2019m looking forward most of all to Richard\u0027s plenary on Saturday morning.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMurray also spoke on the contribution of medialist scholars to popular culture knowledge related to productions like Game of Thrones and video games that utilize medieval themes. Relating to this is emergent focus of study examining medieval literature, language, and culture and their reception in postmedival times, which has featured prominently in Utz\u0027s recent research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERichard Utz in particular is talking about what we call \u201cMedievalism,\u201d which is the embodiment of various things borrowed from the medieval past in such things as architecture, popular entertainment, popular literature\u2014of which Tolkien is an example, who was an authentic Oxford scholar of Old English, but also wrote imaginative fiction based upon what he took away from the Middle Ages and what he wanted to convey to the modern age.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUtz has taught a wide range of topics, from Geoffrey Chaucer\u0027s medieval poetry through Bruce Chatwin\u0027s postmodern prose, and his scholarship centers on medieval studies, medievalism, the interconnections between humanistic inquiry and science\/technology, reception study, and the formation of cultural memories and identities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUtz\u0027s lecture, titled\u003Cem\u003E Our Middle Ages, Ourselves\u003C\/em\u003E, stated that while medievalists have become more geographically, culturally, methodologically, and linguistically inclusive, have more access to more medieval texts, and have amassed more detailed knowledge about aspects of medieval culture than ever before, the most decisive qualitative change have been the inclusion of subjective, affective, atemporal, and public connections medievalists make when they engage with the Middle Ages.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/wmuk.org\/post\/50th-medieval-congress-celebrates-congresses-past\u0022\u003EContinue to article on \u003Cem\u003EWMUK\u003C\/em\u003E...\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.westernherald.com\/arts_and_entertainment\/article_ad8cbcbe-f7fd-11e4-8982-bb4a8334f062.html\u0022\u003EContinue to article on the \u003Cem\u003EWestern Herald\u003C\/em\u003E...\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27889","created_gmt":"2015-05-18 10:42:06","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 02:27:31","author":"Beth Godfrey","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","publication":"compact discs","field_article_url":"","publication_url":"http:\/\/wmuk.org\/post\/50th-medieval-congress-celebrates-congresses-past","dateline":{"date":"2015-05-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-05-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"404111":{"id":"404111","type":"image","title":"Richard Utz","body":null,"created":"1449252000","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 18:00:00","changed":"1539181964","gmt_changed":"2018-10-10 14:32:44","alt":"Portrait photo of School of Literature, Media, and Communication Chair Richard Utz","file":{"fid":"75989","name":"s200_richard_utz_oct_2014.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/s200_richard_utz_oct_2014.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/s200_richard_utz_oct_2014.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":29255,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/s200_richard_utz_oct_2014.jpg?itok=DUqiN_VU"}}},"media_ids":["404111"],"groups":[{"id":"1281","name":"Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts"},{"id":"1283","name":"School of Literature, Media, and Communication"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1270","name":"conference"},{"id":"2437","name":"lecture"},{"id":"39781","name":"LMC"},{"id":"99541","name":"medieval"},{"id":"167234","name":"speaker"},{"id":"3196","name":"Talk"},{"id":"33461","name":"Utz"},{"id":"126321","name":"WMU"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}