Wonder how Disney uses notions of the medieval to storytell? On this week's episode we discuss the modern medieval classic Sleeping Beauty (1959) with our very first guest and dear classmate, Geanina Beres. Throughout our conversation, we touch upon influential 'medieval' inspiration such as the 19th century Bavarian Neuschwanstein Castle or the 1950's modern design of illustrator Eyvind Earle. 

You can find our guest Geanina Beres at: @gean.vrtg on Instagram and @GeaninaBeres for Twitter. 

For further reading, check out: "Where Happily Ever After Happens Every Day’: The Medievalisms of Disney’s Princesses" by Clare Bradford in Tison Pugh & Susan Aronstein's book The Disney Middle Ages: A Fairy-Tale and Fantasy Past.

What's so funny about the Medieval?

In this episode we discuss the relationship comedy has with the medieval, and the difficulties we sometimes have in recognising when we're laughing with and laughing at the medieval. As always, we take pop culture references such as the Big Bang Theory and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which we use as our case example for this week. 

.

.

.

Here is the link to the Decameron Project mentioned in this episode: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/07/magazine/decameron-project-short-story-collection.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

For our very first OFFICIAL episode we talk about the unsettling parallels between The Plague and Covid-19.

Two grad students with little to do but their MA History of Art dissertations finding new ways to procrastinate. Let's get Modern Medieval!