HA is now the Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe

We have changed our name to Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe (JEMNE). We've updated our domain to jemne.org and our mission statement. Links to articles published under The Heroic Age will continue to function without change.

We hope you share our excitement as we transition!

Mission

JEMNE is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal dedicated to the exploration of all aspects of early medieval Northwestern Europe from c. 300–c. 1400. Our mission is to provide a forum for the investigation of the histories, cultures, and peoples of the medieval North Atlantic and North Sea regions in their local, intercultural, and global contexts. We seek to publish work using a variety of methodologies and frameworks both emergent and traditional. We welcome innovative approaches to the field.

Issue 21: Teaching in the Middle Ages

23-Aug-2023

Beowulf and Medievalism: The Monsters Are Now Heroes

Carol Parrish Jamison (Georgia Southern University)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11106534

Abstract: Assigning works of medievalism alongside canonical medieval texts can prove effective in engaging student interest and introducing new perspectives to familiar material. In this essay, I discuss teaching strategies that proved effective in my newly-created senior seminar course, Beowulf and Medievalism. In this course, I teach two translations of Beowulf, Seamus Heaney’s 1991 version and Maria Dahvana Headley’s 2020 version. Students then read several revisionist novels: John Gardner’s Grendel (1971), Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead (1976), Susan Signe Morrison Grendel’s Mother (2015), and Maria Dahvana Headley’s The Mere Wife (2018). Student responses to these works not only sparked interest in the original text, but inspired research on a variety of topics, including ecocritical perspectives to Beowulf, Beowulf-inspired video gaming, toxic masculinity in the heroic code, and the roles of women in both Anglo-Saxon and contemporary society. Notably, students showed interest in the shifting role of Grendel and Grendel’s mother, from monsters to heroes, as reflections of today’s political and cultural concerns.

23-May-2024

Teaching the Middle Ages in the Global South: A Few Whys and Hows

Renato Rodrigues da Silva (Universidade Federal Fluminense)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11264875

Abstract: The study and teaching of the Middle Ages have been challenged lately. This article aims to discuss why and how this context can be studied and taught. The text addresses the problem trying to answer those questions in the Global South. The main argument is as the Global South has no direct connection to the early medieval period, a relation of alterity (instead of continuity) is imposed, while in the Global North the argument for continuity prevails. The article also argues that addressing distant pasts (as the early Middle Ages) from a meaningful pedagogical perspective using backward design methodologies can contribute to shape historical consciousnesses that are attentive to diversity, empowering students to imagine and build more diverse futures.

Issue 21: General Articles

23-Aug-2023

Scyld and Grendel: Two Reigns of Terror

Richard Fahey (University of Notre Dame) and Chris Vinsonhaler (City University of New York)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11106950

Abstract: Scyld Scefing is often praised as a god cyning “good king” (11), who establishes a heroic encomium in the prologue of Beowulf. However, on closer investigation, we will argue that the brave deeds of Scyld do not appear very different from Grendel’s fyrendæda “crime-deeds” (1001). We will contend that this parallelism has profound ethical implications for both the famous Scyld and the infamous Grendel, and the juxtaposition of the Scyld-episode and Grendel-episode serves to highlight their lexical and thematic similarities. In this article, we will challenge conventional readings of Scyld as an appropriative model of heroism in the poem. We will suggest that while Grendel represents a terror to Denmark, Scyld equally represents a terror from Denmark. In the violent world of Beowulf, heroes and monsters reign supreme, and both pillage, plunder and terrorize their neighbors.

23-Aug-2023

Reviews

Jones, Fossil Poetry

Miles Tittle (University of Ottawa)

Featured Article from Issue 13

Raising Cain in Genesis and Beowulf: Challenges to Generic Boundaries in Anglo-Saxon Biblical Literature

Heide Estes (Monmouth University)

Abstract: Beowulf and other secular heroic poems in Old English are considered by most contemporary scholars to belong to a different genre than the poems based on Old Testament narratives. For the Anglo-Saxons, however, such a division of secular and biblical is artificial. As the eighth century turned to the ninth, Alcuin protested famously against the recitation of heroic literature, asking "Quid Hinieldus cum Christo?" ["What does Ingeld have to do with Christ?"] But it appears that the two scribes of the Nowell Codex, working two centuries later, shared no such compunction about a division between secular and sacred literatures. Poems such as Beowulf and the Battle of Maldon incorporate Biblical allusions, while saints' lives and poetic renditions of Old Testament narratives borrow syntactic and discursive units from poems in the secular and heroic traditions. In the adaptation from Biblical Genesis to Anglo-Saxon poem, Abraham is re-imagined as a formidable warrior in the mold of Beowulf and Byrhtnoth. Rather than reading them as works opposed in purpose and audience, religious and secular, serious and popular, we must see the Old English Genesis and Beowulf as parts of the same inheritance in which Germanic and Biblical legacies are fused into a single cultural matrix.

Featured Article from Issue 14

Old English Literacy, the Digital Revolution, and New Media Aliteracy

Mary Dockray-Miller (Lesley University)

Abstract: In light of current debates about literacy, critical thinking, and foundational knowledge in the undergraduate curriculum, this essay argues for an expansion and redirection of the discourse of Old English studies to include issues of literacy and aliteracy, language history and change, and interdisciplinary communication with professional training programs as well as other liberal arts disciplines.

Call For Papers
General Submissions

Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe welcomes and encourages papers on topics unrelated to themed sections at any time. Please refer to the Submission Instructions for more information.

International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 8–10, 2025

JEMNE: Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe has proposed two sessions for the next Congress:

The Role(s) of Generative AI in Medieval Studies(?)

This session seeks contributions that propose novel methodologies or demonstrate responsible implementations of Generative AI (GAI) in research projects related to medieval studies. Methodologies may include text-based or non-text-based use of GAI and proposals can span a wide range of scholarly activities, from traditional academic works that challenge our understanding of the past to digital humanities projects to public-facing scholarship. All methods and implementations should address both the ethical and practical dimensions of using GAI for a wide range of scholars with different levels of access to (and comfort with) GAI.

Submissions are accepted through the ICMS Confex System here.

Archaeology in the Medieval Past

This session invites contributions focused on archaeological approaches to the medieval past. We hope to broaden the conversation around the unique insights archaeological methods provide into the material culture and lived environments of medieval societies. We welcome all proposals, including updates and insights emerging from current projects, applications of innovative methodologies (both theoretical and applied), and fresh approaches to traditional methods.

Submissions are accepted through the ICMS Confex System here.

Legal Notices

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