(Re)Visiting the Reel/Un-Reel Middle Ages: Pathways to Furthering Research on Medievalisms on Screen (A Roundtable) (Virtual)
61st International Congress on Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan)/Online through Confex
Session 25: Thursday, 14 May 2026, 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College; Scott Manning, Independent Scholar; and Siân Echard, Univ. of British Columbia
Co-sponsored by Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture; International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB); International Society for the Study of Medievalism
Presider: Michael R. Evans, Delta College
1 - Once and Future: Reflections on the Rise of Medieval Screenic Studies
Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College
This presentation will highlight my experiences as an enthusiast and scholar of medievalisms on screen by mapping out the beginnings of the field of Medieval Screenic Studies, highlighting key moments in its advancement, and suggesting where it needs to go next to best serve Medieval Studies in general.
Michael A. Torregrossa (he/him) is a graduate of the Medieval Studies program at the University of Connecticut (Storrs) and works as an adjunct instructor of writing and literature courses in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts. His research focuses on popular culture’s adaptation, appropriation, and transformation of stories and includes foundational studies on the figures of Merlin and Mordred on screen. In addition to these pursuits, Michael is the founder of The Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain (2000-) and The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture (2004-). He also serves as editor for these organizations' various blogs and as moderator of their discussion lists and leads the development of their conference activities.
2 -
Scott Manning, Independent Scholar
This roundtable paper will focus on my experience working with Kevin J. Harty on continuing his work on The Reel Middle Ages, specifically through the edited volume Cinema Medievalia: New Essays on the Reel Middle Ages (2024) and the in-progress volume tentatively titled The European Middle Ages on Film (2027).
Scott Manning is an independent scholar whose work on cinematic medievalism has appeared in Studies in Medievalism, The Year's Work in Medievalism, Mise-en-Scène, and Film & History, among other venues. He is co-editor, with Kevin J. Harty, of Cinema Medievalia: New Essays on the Reel Middle Ages and the forthcoming European Medieval Cinema. He is also the author of Joan of Arc: A Reference Guide to Her Life and Works and co-chair of the Medieval and Renaissance Area of MAPACA.
3 - Murder and Medievalism on The Traitors
Kristin Noone, Irvine Valley College
The contemporary reality show genre inherits and reinscribes the medieval confessional narrative: the drama of sin, repentance, and confession reflects a medievalizing rhetoric of ritualized emotion in a public context. The Traitors, especially in its popular US incarnation, provides a form of experiential medievalism, in location, theming, and emotional affect.
Kristin Noone (she/they; either is fine) is an English professor and Writing Center faculty at Irvine Valley College in Southern California; her research interests include medievalism, fantasy, adaptation studies, and popular romance. Her publications have included studies of ethics in the work of Terry Pratchett, examinations of food and feasting in modern outlaw romance, and the co-editing (with Caroline-Isabelle Caron) of the first academic book-length study of Star Trek tie-in fiction. She is a recent recipient of both the Diane Calhoun-French Grant for Two-Year College Faculty, administered by the Popular Culture Association, and the Kathleen Gilles Seidel Grant, administered by the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance. In her not-too-secret identity, she is an Amazon bestselling author of LGBTQ romance fiction (often paranormal or fantasy), a Rainbow Award winner, a Queer Indie Book Award winner in Fantasy, and a Good Sex Awards (in writing, that is!) Runner-Up.
4 - (De)Constructing Gender in On-Screen Science Fantasy Medievalisms
Lars Olaf Johnson, Cornell Univ.
Using the on-screen adaptations of Nimona and The Wheel of Time as case studies, this roundtable contribution will discuss how the collision of futuristic and neomedieval aesthetics within the science fantasy genre creates queer temporalities with the potential to challenge normative essentialist models of race, gender, and sexuality.
Lars Johnson is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Literatures in English at Cornell University. His research concentrations include Old Norse, Old English, and Middle English literatures and their legacies in contemporary medievalisms. His dissertation, (Un)Familiar Pasts: Queer Uses of the Middle Ages in Fantasy Medievalisms, comparatively analyzes how these bodies of literature construct identities such as gender, race, and sexuality.
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