![]() How can they best communicate the social and economic benefits of their work or even just make people care a little? Much of their research is political, if you look at it in the right light. In the UK and elsewhere, the ‘impact agenda’ makes this kind of thinking more important for medievalists. Utz’s book itself is short, engaging, and unusually cheap, so people might actually read it. Bruce Holsinger’s ability to produce both engaging historical novels and scholarly books is highlighted. This can take many forms, from pushing open access publishing, to being more creative and varied about outputs. So part of Utz’s manifesto is to think about breaking down barriers between academic and public history. Maybe, just maybe, this is not helping when it comes to public perceptions of academia. Public discourse is not valued for career progression and intellectual respectability. Academia becomes alienated from its public. Perhaps writing big expensive books in impenetrable jargon is part of the problem for academic medieval studies, he suggests. Throughout, Utz joins the long chorus-line of scholars who have come to lament the stark separation of academic and public history. ![]() This is more than a matter of self-reflexivity for its own sake: it establishes an important basis for recognising where a medievalist should feel an ethical obligation to intervene in discussions about or representations of the past. These were things that had deep effects on the way he approaches his scholarship more generally. To establish his own context, Utz fills his book with vignettes from his family and personal experiences. Why only think about the most academic one? All historical writing has a context and many audiences. Utz suggests that the kind of medieval studies that concentrates on the authentic scholarly reconstruction of the past is basically a subset of medievalism rather than vice versa. Importantly, it really is a book with messages for all medievalists, not just those already consciously engaged more narrowly with the reception of medieval history and culture. ![]() What kind of manifesto might such a subject need and how might all medievalists benefit from it? His subject, medievalism, is broadly the study of the use of medieval history in post-medieval politics and culture. What shall we do with Richard Utz’s new book, Medievalism: A Manifesto? It is a great little book – deliberately accessible, off-beat, and provocative. Just in case anyone might mistake it for one. ![]()
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