Monday, October 15, 2012

Beowulf and why YOU should write for the MSCU

Salvete, fellow Medievalists and lovers of all things that have declensions!

My name's Josef, and I'm on your MSCU exec for the 2012-2013 school year with a two-part post: first, some things to share that may satisfy the urge for cool things in between memorizing conjugation:

In the context of upcoming discussion in Dr. Iain Higgins' Medieval World class on the Germanic and Scandinavian "Warrior Worlds" of the eighth to tenth centuries, here is, in my opinion, one of the most engaging live interpretations of Beowulf to an audience. It is often easy to forget in looking at the cleanly printed text translations of the Old English on smooth white paper (or coffee-stained, dog-eared, and printed in the 50s - let's not lie to ourselves here) that we are looking at a story and getting a glimpse into a world that was entirely and immediately real for the people that lived in it. Not only that, this world was spoken, and sung, and memorized and adapted; almost like a early Medieval slam poetry session, but without time limits or hipsters. (Though enthusiastic audiences would certainly have been a must!) 

This is Benjamin Bagby on Anglo-Saxon harp:

 

For those of us with aging laptops that dislike Youtube and/or who are excited in a perhaps more than healthy way by hyperlinks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13cES7MMd8

Also, those of us who may appreciate cute Arthurian references will enjoy this:


And those of us who miss the hipsters not present in the Beowulf above will find solace in this LOTR parody.

Now! By way of introduction to the second half, the MSCU's job is to build the community of medieval-ist/-tending students here at UVic, build links with faculty, other departments, and cool events on campus, as well as connecting our study here at UVic with all the cool stuff happening out there! So, we want to hear from you - and it can be on this blog! If you're interested in sharing your view of the Middle Ages through Viking longships, Carolingian court politics, papal opulence, Late Antique marginalia, medieval underwear, whatever! let us know, and we'll give you a place to publish. It's a chance to share your perspective on academia with the whole wide internet! (which apparently reads our blog by the way, if Google statistics are to be trusted, so I'm not just saying that! Maybe blogger has been taking a page from Medieval war chroniclers...)

For our part, we'll do our best to keep up a steady stream of academic and healthily not-so-academic resources to make your understanding of the Middle Ages that much more bizarre!

For those of you not yet fans of our Facebook group, you can sign up here!

Remember that Game of Thrones continues on Tuesday 5-7 in CLE A311 at UVic, with episodes 5 & 6. Someone will be there a little early, so feel free to come even if you missed the last one - we can give you the run-down synopsis! What's that? Someone already has, you say?

Keep it medieval, people.

- Josef

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