Ask a Medievalist

Summary

Halloween! A time of candy, Pagan ritual, sexy bus driver costumes, and syncretism. How much of this holiday has been handed down to us from the middle ages, and how much is modern? Join Em and Jesse for an exciting discussion of the medieval version of All Hallows’ Eve, with some fun digressions on the myths of Persephone/Ishtar in the underworld, JK Rowling, the movie Wicker Man, and why people are unlikely to put razor blades in Halloween candy.

Annotations and Corrections

1/ Syncretism: when people with different beliefs run into each other, and for whatever reason they decide that they have actually been believing in the same religion even though they use different names for things–for example, Haitian Vodou involves many elements of syncretism between West African folk beliefs and Roman Catholic beliefs; for example, many of the lwa (the second level of deity, typically Yoruban gods) are syncretized with Catholic saints (Papa Legba, for example, is variously associated with St. Peter, St. Lazarus, and St. Anthony). Syncretism can happen because of cultural struggle (the Haitians were transported from West Africa to slavery in Haiti, where they were captives of French Catholics), or because two cultures live next to each other for a long time, or for other reasons. [Yeah, it’s a little more complicated than blending, borrowing, appropriating, and other words that get used for this sort of thing.–Jesse]

2/ There has been a weird revival of the Hades and Persephone story, probably because of this immensely popular web comic (hitherto unknown to me, but it’s entirely adorable) OR this other adorable web comic about them (what is even going on), but also there are a lot of memes like this that honestly I like because they retell the story in a way that gives Persephone a much more active hand in determining her fate than other versions. Although I find the interest in this particular story a little surprising–maybe because unlike Zeus or Poseidon, Hades seems to have been pretty loyal to her?

Other versions of the myth, which we discuss somewhat in passing, involve Persephone being abducted by Hades and then tricked into eating pomegranate seeds. Homer doesn’t mention the abduction myth in the Iliad or the Odyssey and just describes her as a formidable queen of the Shades. Hesiod mentions the abduction briefly. Either way, it’s worth noting that “Persephone” might mean “bringer of destruction,” which is kind of appropriate for a nature goddess, right? I mean, nature is not a benign force. Nature is flowers in a meadow, but nature is also bears and sharks and moose and hippopotamuses and tornadoes.

Jesse: It’s true that Homer doesn’t mention the abduction myth in the Iliad or the Odyssey; in fact, his description of Persephone focuses on the fact that she is to be feared. Hesiod also implies that she is as terrifying as her husband Hades (Theogony lines 768 and 775), although he also briefly mentions that Persephone is carried off from her mother by Hades (Theogony lines 914–15).

Hesiod’s Theogony at Perseus Project

It’s clear from Hesiod that Persephone’s dread aspect (Hesiod’s ἐπαινῆς Περσεφονείης) and her abduction by Hades are not mutually exclusive elements of the myth. The abduction is clearly a stable and long-standing part of the story–as is the fact that Zeus enables it by essentially giving Persephone to his brother Hades without her mother Demeter’s knowledge or permission–and the Homeric Hymn to De...

Synopsis Dance dramas are theatrical presentations that use dance (and sometimes words, but mostly dance) to tell a story. Em and Jesse look at dance dramas from around the world, from Mesoamerica before and after the Spanish invasion to Japan. With a number of digressions involving Prince, Irish step dancing, Alvin Ailey, and the movie …

Continue reading "Episode 17: Dance Like Nobody’s Watching"

Synopsis

Dance dramas are theatrical presentations that use dance (and sometimes words, but mostly dance) to tell a story. Em and Jesse look at dance dramas from around the world, from Mesoamerica before and after the Spanish invasion to Japan. With a number of digressions involving Prince, Irish step dancing, Alvin Ailey, and the movie Being John Malkovich.

Annotations and Corrections

1/ A shout out to Manual Cinema in Chicago. Here’s the Candyman trailer.

We talked about Kara Walker in episode 10 (see notes 16 and 24).

2/ The theatre in the Water Tower is Lookingglass Theatre. Mr and Mrs Pennyworth (trailer here) was a Lookingglass Theatre production with Manual Cinema. If you’re in Chicago, we recommend them both.

The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival is here. They’re doing workshops at the end of October/through November 2020 online, and more will undoubtedly pop up. Check them out.

Also, check out the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta–great programming for kids.

3/ Dance drama! We talked about this a little bit at the end of episode 12 (note 30), in the context of Aztec and Mayan dance dramas.

Misty Copeland is the first African American woman to become a principal dancer for American Ballet Theatre, which is one of the biggest ballet companies in the US (if you are like me/Em and don’t understand what a principal dancer is–it’s like having a fifth degree black belt in dance, I guess). For his own purple reasons, Prince hired her to dance on top of his piano (and throughout his stage show) back when he was still alive and touring. [Heart.–Jesse]

Race in ballet is a complicated topic, but it is worth noting that until relatively recently, it was common for non-White ballerinas to powder their skin while performing to appear paler, while some roles were danced by White dancers wearing blackface. In addition, there are traditional standards for what ballerinas look like that privilege the look of white bodies. Finally, ballet is expensive to train in if you’re not being paid–think $200 per month for pointe shoes.

The Richmond, VA woman who took up Irish dance is Morgan Bullock and video of her can be found here.

Ballerinas changing the Lee statue in Richmond (and much more!): Brown Ballerinas for Change.

Alvin Ailey founded his own dance troupe and choreographed a landmark piece called “Revelations.” More about “Revelations” here.

An excerpt from Dada Masilo’s Swan Lake. NYT write-up.

2/ Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz (1648–1695). Wrote the Loa for the (Auto Sacramental of the) Divine Narcissus. See episode 12, note 30 and following.

Of women elsewhere in Europe doing amazing things during this time, look no farther than Sophia of the Palatinate (1630–1714), who became electress of Hanover and was mother of (the British) King George I.

Summary Puppets are actually a pretty medieval art form–and not just for kids. These puppets do and say things that would have been politically risky for the humans controlling them to say, and also they are real works of art. Join us as we look puppetry traditions of Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkey, and Egypt. With …

Continue reading "Episode 16: Much Ado About Puppets"

Summary

Puppets are actually a pretty medieval art form–and not just for kids. These puppets do and say things that would have been politically risky for the humans controlling them to say, and also they are real works of art. Join us as we look puppetry traditions of Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkey, and Egypt. With some digressions about the fun of buying random pastries at Chinese bakeries, and also Shakespeare.

Annotations, Notes, Corrections

1/ Em: I have made vegan mooncakes (mooncakes, or 月餅 / yue bing, are the pastry with egg yolks inside–typically salted duck eggs, I think–there might be other pastries like this too). My Taiwanese friends were, hmm, gracious. Also, I have made my own red bean paste, and it is basically all sugar (well, a lot of recipes have a 1:1 ratio of adzuki beans to sugar; some note that if you’re using the bean paste in pastry, as opposed to serving it on its own, you should use more).

Also, the mushrooms I got hung up on: cat ear mushroom/nam meo is actually, I think, the Vietnamese name for it. The Chinese name is black wood ear/黑木耳, so the word “mushroom” was actually not on the menu, hence my confusion. BUT also it turns out that in the Middle Ages (at least, according to Wikipedia), they were called Jew’s Ear mushrooms! And in fact the Latin name is Auricuularia auricula-judae. Why? The mushrooms themselves are vaguely ear-shaped, and tradition holds that Judas Iscariot hanged himself on an elder tree, which is where the mushrooms grow (in some places).

Jesse: Food is amazing!!! We should have a food episode!!

2/ Cesar: Gaul is full of barbarians.

France, 1500 years later: We are the resurgence of classical civilization, of which Greece and Rome were the primary lights.

Cesar: My, how the turntables have… turned.

3/ Concerning Titus Andronicus: the villain, Aaron the Moor, has the best evil monologue in all of Shakespeare. You can read it here. That is the only thing I really have to say about that play, which in other respects is…really bloody.

Jesse: 3 Henry VI, I.iv–Queen Margaret has (Richard Duke of) York stand on a molehill (which parallels the hill at Calvary) and crowns him with a paper crown (which parallels Jesus’s crown of thorns). Margaret also gives York a handkerchief to dry his tears, and the handkerchief is stained in the blood of his son (Edmund Earl of) Rutland. In this moment, Rutland is symbolic of the Christ child, while his blood on the handkerchief is reminiscent of the collecting of Christ’s blood in the chalice (aka the holy grail) at the crucifixion. We get some good father/son symbolism as well, before York is stabbed to death by Margaret and Clifford. Shakespeare is clearly using the symbolism from Passion plays to great advantage.

Margaret also gets some truly extraordinary lines (it IS Shakespeare): “Brave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,/ Come, make him stand upon this molehill here,/ That raught at mountains with outstretched arms,/ Yet parted but the shadow with his hand.” (I love this line so much.)

Also of interest, the 1592 pamphlet written by playwright Robert Green (probably, and published by Henry Chettle), titled Greenes, Groats-worth of Witte, bought with a million of Repentance, includes the famous lines “there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrie.” The quote refers to a jack-of-all-trades (Johannes Factotum) who thinks a lot of himself as a an actor (player) even though his abilit...

Summary In which Em and Jess discuss the important theoretical contributions of Tropic Thunder and Blazing Saddles to performance studies, thereby illustrating the important differences between performance, theatre, and ritual and vital questions about their respective origins. Also, Jess calls Socrates evil, and then Em and Jess decolonize medieval theatre beginning with India and China. …

Continue reading "Episode 15: The Not-Evolution of Theatre"

Summary

In which Em and Jess discuss the important theoretical contributions of Tropic Thunder and Blazing Saddles to performance studies, thereby illustrating the important differences between performance, theatre, and ritual and vital questions about their respective origins.

Also, Jess calls Socrates evil, and then Em and Jess decolonize medieval theatre beginning with India and China.

(Aristotle loves theatre and therefore was not evil.)

Notes, Annotations, and Corrections

1/ Okay, to be honest–we didn’t talk about Australia, and that is a super colonized place that is ripe for a reevaluation–evidently, the period we refer to as “the middle ages” is typically called “prehistory” in Australia because there were no written records. (Refer to previous rant about the privileging of written records over other forms of memory.) Sometime we will have to circle back and think about this. [I read “super colonized” as “spider colonized” at first, which also rings true for Australia. But yes–we will definitely have to cover Australia and New Zealand!–JN]

2/ The dudes are emerging. [So many layers!!!–JN]

The new ice cream truck jingle by RZA. Turkey in the Straw information.

White Christmas “Minstrel Number”.

A NY Times article on the Met production of Othello. [Seriously, WTF!!! Come on, Met!–JN]]

I think the Ben Stiller/Spielberg movie was Empire of the Sun. [Yes, it was!–JN]

The Sean Penn movie was I Am Sam. I [Em] hadn’t heard of it, and–wow. Reading the summary, all I can say is it deserves whatever fun Ben Stiller was able to poke at it.

Also, as a face-blind person, the fact that so many actors become famous because they look like other actors is the bane of my freaking existence.

And here is the trailer for Satan’s Alley.

3/ [17:35] On performing parenthood: welcome to Em’s theory of how gender inequalities get perpetuated from generation to generation despite the idea that women shouldn’t have to do 100% of childcare and homemaking being a thing since at least 1989. (Actually probably a lot of women had this idea earlier, but 1989 is when The Second Shift was published.)

This doesn’t have too much to do with medieval studies, but whatever, sez I. [This was definitely an issue in the Middle Ages! We should have a medieval kid/parenthood episode.–JN] [I would totally be in for that.–Em]

4/ For Ishtar/Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld, see Episode 8 nt. 18.

Oedipus Rex, by Tom Lehrer.

5/ [29:59] “Socrates is evil…we’ll footnote that.” Stub footnote so Jesse can provide some proof or something. Otherwise we are going to get nailed on this by the ancient philosophy crowd. [I stand by this!! I have long rants on this, but I can boil it down to a few points. 1) Socrates’s students–specifically Critias–were responsible for a coup that overthrew the democracy in 404 BCE and installed the Thirty Tyrants, who were sympathetic to Sparta (to whom Athens had just lost the Peloponnesian War). 2) The Tyrants, especially Critias, were only in power for 8 months but managed to kill a LOT of people (maybe 5% of the Athenian population). Scholars have excused this over the years as “ne...

Summary “One night in Bangkok makes a hard man tremble.” Weird concept musicals by Abba members aside, Asia is a place that many in the West have a fairly Orientalist relationship with, seeing it as both exotic and primitive. In today’s episode, we explore that relationship; starting with the French “restoration” of Angkor Wat, we …

Continue reading "Episode 14: Decolonization and Asia"

Summary

“One night in Bangkok makes a hard man tremble.” Weird concept musicals by Abba members aside, Asia is a place that many in the West have a fairly Orientalist relationship with, seeing it as both exotic and primitive. In today’s episode, we explore that relationship; starting with the French “restoration” of Angkor Wat, we move on to the naming of countries and map making. Includes some digressions on CSI, lese-mageste laws, the play Cambodian Rock Band, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. If you’re not a regular reader of the notes, be sure to at least check out note 20 (around 1:10:40) for transcription of a bit that had to be cut because of recording issues.

Notes, Annotations, and Corrections

1/ Jesse: If anyone is wondering, the CSI:Miami episode is “Man Down,” season 5, episode 15 (aired in February 2007).

Em: Sir Archibald Mapsalot III.

2/ Emily: “So, Asia… uh… It’s really big.”

About Mongolia: There’s a lot of China that is farther west than Mongolia, but you could also say the same thing for a lot of South/Southeast Asia–China is very big. Technically, the US Department of State classes it as East Asia, but I don’t believe the UW-Madison Department of East Asian Languages and Literature had anything to do with it (go figure). Arguably it has more in common with a lot of Central Asia owing to having been ruled by various Steppe nomad tribes–although come to that, China was as well, and–

Anyway, enjoy this song by the premiere heavy metal band of Mongolia, the HU. [Great song!–Jesse]

3/ Anthony Reid’s Wikipedia page has a list of his publications. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce vols. I and II are the ones that I read.

4/ The lese-majeste laws in Thailand basically limit what can be said about the royal family (as well as royal development projects, the royal institution, the entire Chakri dynasty, and any previous Thai king). Every couple of years, there’s a big case of some foreigner being brought up on charges for drunkenly punching a portrait of the king or stepping on a bank note or something. Unclear how this will change under the new king (Rama X), who is not as beloved as his father was. There have been a bunch of higher profile cases recently (a lot more protests recently).

The King Never Smiles, by Paul M. Handley, was an unauthorized biography of Rama IX (Bhumibol) and did not paint him in a good light (I believe it cast some doubt on the official story of how he came to be king as well–although other biographers, including the authorized biographer William Stevenson, have also proposed weird theories and gotten their books banned as a result). If all of this sounds very mysterious, go read Ananda Mahidol’s (Rama VIII) Wikipedia page.

5/ The mysterious book about Thai prisons may have been The Damage Done by Warren Fellows, but “Thai Prison Memoirs” is an entire genre–here’s a list of several. Note that they are disturbing.

QI clip about prison. [Most of QI is hilarious. This clip is not!–Jesse]

6/ Siem Reap, Cambodia. Lovely place. Be careful not to wander through random fields and be careful going out late at ...

Summary In the words of the great philosopher Toto, “I bless the RAINS down in AFRICA.” [This song plays every year at the Saturday night dance at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, otherwise known as Kalamazoo. Very medieval. –Jesse] We explore Africa from a decolonizing viewpoint, including words of wisdom from deceased UW–Madison professor …

Continue reading "Episode 13: Decolonizing Africa"