Free Book Offer for Medieval Scholars!

We here at Professor Awesome’s University like free stuff. And we like smart people. So we especially love giving free stuff to smart people.

Side note: We also love giving smart stuff to free people. And free smart stuff to free smart people. We’re just givers, really.

So, this week only, in honor of the 49th International Congress on Medieval Studies, in conjunction with Witan Publishing (purveyors of fine medieval scholarship), we are offering the medieval scholars in our audience TWO chances to get a free medieval e-book of their choice. Your two opportunities:

  1. You can submit a proposal for a book with Witan Publishing. Just click here and send in your initial submission, and mention your free book selection (from the Witan titles listed below) in the “Comments” box (also, mention if you want it in Kindle or Nook format). Whether Witan decides to pursue your project or not, you’ll get the ebook absolutely free, courtesy of Professor Awesome’s University and Witan Publishing.*
  2. What if you’re a medieval scholar but don’t have a project ready for publication at the moment? No problem! Everyone in attendance at Professor Awesome’s session at K’zoo can also choose a free e-book. Just come  to “Irrationality as a Fruitful Methodology,” Session 504 in Schneider 1220. Unfortunately, it is a Sunday morning 8:30am session (boo!), but check out the luminaries in that session: You’ve got The Skipper (of the Englisc Listserv), The Swain (of the Heroic Age), Jenn Jordan (of Darwin Carmichael fame), Deanna Forsman (also of the Heroic Age), and Silas Mallery! All these folks PLUS a free e-book!

Do either of those, and you get to pick one of these freebies, in either Kindle or Nook formats:

  • Formal Combats in the Fourteenth Century by Steven Muhlberger
    Formal Combats in the Fourteenth Century presents the lifetime of scholarship by respected professor Steven Muhlberger in an accessible format that will engage both scholars and amateur enthusiasts alike. Adapted from various scholarly addresses over Muhlberger’s career, each chapter represents a different element of formal combat. Muhlberger presents formal combats as neither senseless violence, nor stylized maneuvering, but rather as controlled violence with deep personal and political implications. He examines formal combats both among nobles and non-nobles, questioning what these deeds meant practically, culturally, and morally.
  • Drout’s Quick and Easy Old English by Michael D.C. Drout, Bruce D. Gilchrist, and Rachel Kapelle
    Michael D.C. Drout has now transformed his classic “King Alfred’s Grammar” into a comprehensive guide for learning Old English. Appropriate for students and enthusiasts alike, Drout’s Quick and Easy Old English presents the basics of the language in an accessible form. Even the most novice student can learn to read the classics of medieval literature in their original language with this system. Drout’s Quick and Easy Old English covers:

    • The history of Old English
    • Orthography, covering the unfamiliar characters of Old English writing
    • Pronouncing Old English
    • Grammar, from nouns and verbs to pronouns and adjectives
    • Tricks for translation

    With the help of Bruce Gilchrist and Rachel Kapelle, Drout provides exercises to reinforce the lessons. After years of testing in classrooms and online, these exercises have been thoroughly vetted for accuracy by scholars around the world, and have guided countless students through their first lessons in Old English.

  • Insular Art Forms: Their Essence and Construction by Robert Stevick
    Dr. Robert Stevick’s Insular Art Forms: Their Essence and Construction emerges as the most innovative work of his long and illustrious career. Building on years of research into medieval manuscript design and construction, Stevick has produced a masterpiece examining the ingenious ways in which insular scribes used geometry and mathematics to produce complex and beautiful designs. In addition to a detailed academic description of these processes, Stevick provides videos clearly illustrating the methods he describes, and materials for practical hands-on recreation of their methods. Insular Art Forms is the only guide that offers both a true scholarly study of these methods and the means for modern readers to reproduce them.Included along with Insular Art Forms is the Insular Art Online Companion, a collection of videos created by Dr. Stevick to explain certain concepts within the work.
  • Beowulf: A Verse Translation for Students by Edward L. Risden
    Beowulf: A Verse Translation for Students offers the famed Anglo-Saxon epic in Modern English. Noted Beowulf scholar Edward L. Risden has crafted a translation that is accessible even to students with no previous familiarity with medieval literature, preserving the beauty of the original verse without sacrificing accuracy. Risden’s translation presents the tale of the warrior Beowulf and his lifetime of intrigue, heroic deeds, and battles with monsters, and his ultimate confrontation with a dragon. Risden’s Beowulf is the exciting yarn of adventure that should electrify the imagination of every student.
  • Alfgar’s Stories from Beowulf by Edward L. Risden
    Alfgar’s Stories from Beowulf is a work of original fiction by noted medieval literary scholar Edward L. Risden adding to the traditional tale of Beowulf, a heroic Scandinavian monster-slayer. Inspired by the original epic, Risden has created a work of gripping adventure and deep emotion. In “Grendel’s Mother,” Risden approaches Beowulf from the perspective of the feral monster of the same name from the epic. “Lay of the Last Survivor” tells of a fated man who finds himself alone, the sole inheritor of a violent and greedy culture. “Scyldingasaga” goes back to the past before Beowulf, to the exploits of Scyld, Beowulf’s legendary ancestor, events that ultimately set the stage for the famous poem. In “Freawaru’s Lament,” Risden builds on a digression in Beowulf to the story of a woman whose marriage leaves her trapped between two families in conflict that can only end in tragedy for her. 

*One small caveat: It has to be a serious proposal of medieval scholarship, not a memoir of that time you went backpacking through Europe or your research into Malaysian business practices.

Jean de Meun’s Fortune-Telling Dice

Apparently Jean de Meun, a medieval writer most famous for writing the continuation of The Romance of the Rose, wrote a fortune-telling manual that used 12-sided dice called The Dodechedron of Fortune. The Folger Library has an English-language version, including a sample page of fortunes.  From reading the descriptions of other scholars, it looks like Jean based his 12 on the 12 signs of the zodiac.

No word yet on the location of Jean de Meun’s Monster Manual or Fiend Folio.

 

[For medieval scholars: Looks like it might be covered a bit in a special session at the International Congress on Medieval Studies this Friday at 1:30. Session 239, Fetzer 2040. I already had that marked in my own program even before I knew they were covering this.]

The “Jesus’ Wife” Forgery and the Limits of Knowledge

It seems that the media is starting to realize that the “Jesus’ wife” papyrus is likely a hoax. This should not surprise us. As soon as we heard that spectroscopy had somehow offered the “definitive” proof (and not coincidentally, just before the annual spate of Easter “who was Jesus” articles), it should have sent up a serious red flag.

Layman who don’t understand textual scholarship (study of books, scrolls, handwriting, etc) typically have an unrealistic sense of what these sorts of physical tests of the artifacts can tell us. They generally aren’t as precise as what we can gather from other types of evidence, such as internal references, linguistic structures, and handwriting styles (I’m talking about paleography here, not the pop culture “Oh, if you make big loops in your handwriting you have an assertive personality” stuff). We can gather information that is both more accurate and precise without ever whipping out a microscope. Usually those sorts of physical tests just work as part of a basket of data confirming what we are already pretty sure of.

But even then, understanding what the information MEANS confuses the general public. For the moment, let’s take out the issue of intentional forgery (which we may have in this case), and assume that we have a legit artifact. And let’s further go into some science fiction universe where we can put the artifact under a microscope and know with 100% certainty that the papyrus was harvested Saturday, May 2nd, 314 AD at 10:52 AM exactly. That doesn’t tell us that the writing comes from that date — it tells us that it could have come from NO EARLIER THAN that date, since it might have sat around for years or even centuries before anyone wrote on it. And since it may be a copy of another text (as was common in pre-printing press days), even if we know that at that very moment a scribe took quill to papyrus, it might be a copy of something first drafted the day before, the year before, or a millennium earlier. Without the other linguistic information, it doesn’t tell us much at all.

But let’s go even farther into the realm of science fiction. Let’s say that we know with 100% certainty that the author of the text first wrote it down on that Saturday morning in 314 AD, and that he was not copying from anywhere else. That would tell us … what, exactly? That some dude in 314 thought Jesus might have had a wife? Heck, I can point to some dude in 2014 who thinks Jesus might have had a wife. Dan Brown made a fortune off that idea — yet it has no bearing whatsoever on whether the historical Jesus had a wife or not, nor is it even an accurate representation of general 21st century belief (let alone 4th century belief).

My point here is not to beat up people who were taken in by a hoax; who hasn’t been tricked at some point in their lives? Instead, it’s to offer a caution — the next time you read a headline saying that some sort of scientific test “proves” something about an ancient, classical, or medieval text: that the Beowulf manuscript was written four centuries earlier than we thought, or that Edward DeVere was really Shakespeare, or that Emperor Shun flew with reed hats — take it with the biggest grain of salt you can find.

__________
Professor Awesome, PhD

Book Series Recommendation from Allegriana

Allegriana, self-described geek-of-all-trades, who you might recognize as The Chainmail Chick, recommends the Vorkosigan Saga. She has her degree in English and Creative Writing,  and spends more time at cons than a person has a right to, she knows of what she speaks.

(No, the feature image above isn’t from the Vorkosigan Saga. It’s the cosplay image of Allegriana that we use as Scheherazade for the “Professor Awesome Presents” videos)