Description
Book Synopsis How are the Crusades portrayed in popular culture today? Have the medieval images of chivalric and military heroes survived the eras of Orientalism and decolonization?
The first of its kind, this comparative study examines representations of the Crusades in both European and Arab medieval texts and in 20th and 21st century transmedia recreations. It follows the cartography and illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages through modern, hybridized narratives in novels, film, comics and gaming. The shifting literary tastes, political agendas and cultural exchanges of audiences on both sides of the Mediterranean reflect their anxieties and ideals.
Table of Contents
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- Part I. Constructing Memory: Geographical Space and Images of Empires
- 1. Mapping the Other: Mappa Mundi, the Evolution of Maps and Charts in Medieval Arab and Western Geography
- 2. The Wonders of the East: Iconology in Eastern and Western Illuminated Manuscripts
- 3. Propaganda: Nostalgia for the Orient and Topoi of the Crusades in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
- 4. Orientalism in the Nineteenth Century: A New Repertoire of Images
- Part II. The Making of Heroes: Perceptions, Representations, Idealization, Propaganda, Mythmaking
- 5. Mirrored Chivalric Images of Saladin and Richard in Arab and Western Sources from Medieval Illuminations to Crusade Films and Illustration
- 6. The Rhetoric of Violence: From Medieval Hyperbole to Combat in Comic Books and Euphemized, Virtual Death in Gaming
- 7. Patrimonialism and the Cult of Crusading Heroes and Jihâd Militants in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Part III. Reframing History: Time, History, and Uchronia
- 8. Literary Manipulation: The Crusades as Pre-Text in Novels
- 9. Redesigning the Orient: Syncretism in Western Illustration and Comic Series
- 10. Gaming, Multiculturalism, and Transmedia Narrative
- Conclusion: The Reception of the Crusades Today
- Chapter Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
