Bad Medieval/ism: Mis/Uses of the Medieval in Contemporary Fiction (A Paper Session) (#Kzoo2026)
Organization: ta
Event: #Kzoo2026
ICMS 2026, Session 7572
This session seeks to examine the misuses and misapplications of the medieval within any fictional media from 1974 forward. Sometimes, accessibility to contemporary audiences requires deviation from what is known to scholarship; sometimes, narrative demands impose changes to particular interpretations of source material. Sometimes, however, things are flatly wrong. Effects on audiences differ, but it is clear that many audiences and authors use contemporary fiction as a means to understand earlier periods. This session seeks to explore what they get right, what they get less right, and why it matters to our ongoing understanding of the belief about the medieval.
https://icms.confex.com/icms/2026/prelim.cgi/Home/0
Tales after Tolkien Society