A book honoring Leslie J. Workman, founder and editor of the journal "Studies in Medievalism," was published in January. The editorial offices of "Studies in Medievalism" have been located at Hope College since 1983.
"Medievalism in the Modern World: Essays in Honour
of Leslie Workman" contains 24 essays, contributed by
scholars in England, Germany, Austria, and Denmark as well
as the United States, and an interview with Workman. The
volume is edited by Richard Utz of the University of
Tubingen and University of Northern Iowa and Tom Shippey of
Saint Louis University, and published by Brepols.
It is the initial volume of a new series, "Making
the Middle Ages," produced by the Centre for Medieval
Studies at the University of Sydney in Australia.
"The volume celebrates Leslie's achievements as
the person who, more than anyone else, has defined
medievalism as an academic field--as the study of the
construction of the idea of the Middle Ages by the way it is
perceived in all succeeding periods," said Dr. Peter J.
Schakel, who is the Peter C. and Emajean Cook Professor of
English and chair of the department at Hope. "He is also
being recognized for the way he has fostered study of that
field through his own writing and providing venues for the
work of other scholars through his editing and
organizational efforts."
Founded in 1976 and first published in 1979,
"Studies in Medievalism" is now published as an annual
volume by Boydell & Brewer in Cambridge, England. The ninth
volume, "Medievalism and the Academy," appeared early this
year. In addition to editorial essays in each volume of
"Studies in Medievalism," Workman's writing includes the
essay "Medievalism and Romanticism," published in 1993 in a
special issue of "Poetica," of which he was co-editor.
Workman's other efforts on behalf of medievalism
include arranging numerous seminars each year since the mid
1970s at such conferences as the annual International
Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, the convention of
the Modern Language Association, and the annual
International Medieval Congress at Leeds, England. Since
1986, he has organized 13 annual conferences on medievalism,
held at sites in Austria and England in addition to various
places the United States, and he established a summer
seminar on medievalism held in 1996 and 1998 at the
University of York in England.
Since 1983, Workman has worked in collaboration
with his wife, Kathleen Verduin, who is a professor of
English at Hope and associate editor of "Studies in
Medievalism." She contributed an article, "Medievalism,
Classicism, and the Fiction of E.M. Forster," to
"Medievalism in the Modern World." Workman and Verduin are
currently working on a major collection of essays which will
survey the entire field of medievalism.
A reception celebrating publication of
"Medievalism in the Modern World" will be held on Tuesday,
March 2, at 3:30 p.m. in room 308 of Lubbers Hall. The
public is invited, and admission is free.