We are delighted to share even more new releases this September! From a ground-breaking new study of Henry V’s chapel, tomb and funeral service to an overview of the Spanish picaresque novel to an illustrated manual showing how a medieval tournament was organized (in three volumes!), and much more!
The Arms and Armour of Death
Edited by Anne Curry and Susan Jenkins
Before Henry V set out in 1415 on the campaign which culminated in victory at Agincourt, he made a will laying down precise instructions for a chantry chapel to be constructed in Westminster Abbey after his death, so that he could be buried close to his saintly ancestor Edward the Confessor. Seven years later the king died at Vincennes, and his body was brought back for burial in the Abbey; the elaborate funeral took place on 7 November 1422. His chapel was finally completed in the late 1430s, and remains a distinctive feature of Westminster Abbey to this day. This book sheds new light on his funeral service and the design of his ornate chantry chapel and tomb. It also considers each of the “funeral achievements” – saddle, helm, shield and sword – traditionally associated with him. Drawing on up-to-date research by experts in each field, with exciting input from new technologies, it investigates the construction and form of the arms and weapons, as well as providing fascinating insights into the material culture and commemoration of royalty in the fifteenth century and beyond.
Andreas Gemählich
In recent years, the cut-flower market has seen the entry of European corporate retail chains as well as the emergence of direct sales between buyers and producers in the Global South. This book explores the dynamics of the global cut-flower market and one of its core production regions around Lake Naivasha in Kenya. The author shows how the growth of Western retailers in the sector has led to a reorganisation of the way cut flowers are consumed, traded, and produced. Gemählich explains how these new trade relations arose, the way in which the power asymmetries unfolded, and the role non-economic actors play in these processes, as well as the ambivalent consequences of the cut-flower industry’s reorganisation for the local stakeholders at Lake Naivasha.
Published in association with the Collaborative Research Centre FUTURE RURAL AFRICA, funded by the German Research Council (DFG).
Edited by Jennifer Nuttall and David Watt
The Middle English poet Thomas Hoccleve, known particularly for his entertainingly biographical verse describing life as a Privy Seal clerk in early fifteenth-century Westminster, is now recognised as a key figure in the literature of later medieval England. This collection of new critical interpretations provides fresh and provocative readings of this lively and engaging medieval writer. Chapters explore the idiosyncratic forms of his two principle works, The Regiment of Princes and Series, as well as Hoccleve’s distinctive imagery of moving feet, of swelling and bursting bodies, and of the actions of personified Death. Other essays consider the presence of the figure of the woman reader, the part played by the codex in posthumous literary sanctification, the links between Hoccleve’s formulary of model letters and documents and his own verse, and the mutually informing relations of Hoccleve’s minor poetry and major works. They are preceded by a substantial introduction, considering contemporary responses to Hoccleve in the light of current trends in literary criticism and surveying the reception of his works between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Edited by Edward H Friedman
After introductory chapters on the picaresque genre and the origin of the phenomenon, the book analyses canonical texts and their role in the picaresque spectrum. Further chapters then turn to critical approaches to the genre and manifestations of the picaresque in Hispanic America, France, England, and modern Spain. Overall, the book affords readers a broad sense of the range of this rich tradition and an in-depth view of the field and its major texts.
Constructing Authority and Identity in Fifteenth-Century Court Culture
Justin Sturgeon
René d’Anjou’s Livre des tournois is famous as the most substantial account of the organisation of a medieval tournament that has come down to us. It is also one of the first true illustrated manuals, and this study explores both its innovative form and the detailed origins of the author’s source material, with a wealth of illustrative material. Three Volume set.
A Novel of Passing
Arthur Rundt
Edited and translated by Peter Höyng and Chauncey J. Mellor
Marylin is a novel by the Austrian writer Arthur Rundt about a mixed-race woman passing as white in America. First published in 1928 and now translated into English, it offers a European view of racial attitudes in the US during the era of the Harlem Renaissance and Jim Crow. Rundt’s novel touches several vital issues in society today-systemic racism, migration and hybrid identities, women’s lives under the patriarchy-engaging each in a way that prompts further examination. An introduction and an afterword contextualize the novel in its time and as it relates to ours.
The Making of the Movie Challenge: Science Against Cancer
David Cantor
During the mid-twentieth century, American and Canadian health agencies, fearing that a shortfall in the numbers of scientists would undermine cancer research, commissioned a movie to recruit young researchers into the field. In Cancer, Research, and Educational Film at Midcentury, author David Cantor chronicles the history of this forgotten film, Challenge: Science Against Cancer (1950), exploring why Canadian and American health agencies turned to film to address the problem of scientist recruitment, how the filmmakers transformed the agencies’ commission into something they thought would work as a film, and how information officers sought to shape the impact of Challenge by embedding it in a broader educational and propaganda program.
Open Access!
Finding the Meaning of Music and Morality 