Sunday, August 1, 2021

Update (Un)Fair(ly) Unknown: New and Neglected Arthurian Television Programming (Mythcon 51)

My thanks to everyone at Mythcon 51 for attending our sponsored session this weekend. Here again are the details of the panel.


(Un)Fair(ly) Unknown: New and Neglected Arthurian Television Programming 

Sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture

The Arthurian tradition abounds with Fair Unknowns, characters whose identity and true worth are revealed only slowly over the course of an adventure. In this session, we’d like to adopt the motif to look at new and neglected television series that make interesting use of the legend and deserve more recognition by scholars.

Panel Chair: Carl B. Sell, Lock Haven University


Paper 1: “Generation X in King Arthur’s Court: Arthurian Television of the 1970s and 1980s”
Michael A. Torregrossa, Independent Scholar

Michael A. Torregrossa is a graduate of the Medieval Studies program at the University of Connecticut (Storrs) and works as an adjunct instructor in English in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts. His research focuses on popular culture’s adaptation and appropriation of literary classics, including the Arthurian legend, Beowulf, Dracula, and Frankenstein.  In addition, Michael is the founder of The Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain and The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture; he also serves as editor for these organizations' various blogs and moderator of their discussion lists. Besides these activities, Michael is also active in the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association and organizes sessions for their annual conference in the fall. Michael is currently Monsters and the Monstrous Area Chair for NEPCA, but he previously served as its Fantastic (Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror) Area Chair, a position he held from 2009-2018.


Paper 2: “Knights, Swords, Roundtables, and Quests:  Contemporary Adaptations and Appropriations of Arthurian Legend”
Rachael Warmington, Seton Hall University

Rachael Warmington is an instructor at Seton Hall University. She earned her B.A. in English from Montclair State University, M.A. in English from Seton Hall University, her MFA at CUNY City College and is a doctoral candidate at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Rachael is also the editor-in-chief of the academic journal, Watchung Review.  Her research focuses on themes of Arthurian Legend in medieval texts and in contemporary literature, film and television adaptations, and appropriations and how these themes create the space that challenges oppression in its various forms but have also been used to perpetuate racism, sexism, and religious intolerance.


Paper 3: ""Medievalism in the Kingdom: Chivalry and Arthurian Kingship in The Walking Dead"
Richard Fahey, University of Notre Dame 

Richard Fahey recently graduated from University of Notre Dame with a PhD in English (2020) and currently works as Blog Manager & Contributor at the Medieval Institute’s "Medieval Studies Research Blog," and Managing Book Review Editor for "Religion & Literature" at Notre Dame. Richard specializes in Old English, Middle English, Latin, Old Norse-Icelandic, and Old Saxon literature, and his research interests include medieval wonders, monsters, magic, riddles, heroism, syncretism, allegory, intellectual history, medievalism, and public humanities. Richard is currently transforming his recent dissertation into a monograph, titled "Psychomachic Monstrosity in Beowulf,” and editing a collection of essays on the subject of “White Wizard Male Privilege.”




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