The medieval film genre is not, in general, concerned with constructing a historically accurate past, but much analysis nonetheless centers on highlighting anachronisms. This book aims to help scholars and aficionados of medieval film think about how the re-creation of an often mythical past performs important cultural work for modern directors and viewers. The essays in this collection demonstrate that directors intentionally insert modern preoccupations into a setting that would normally be considered incompatible with these concepts. The Middle Ages provide an imaginary space far enough removed from the present day to explore modern preoccupations with human identity.

Tison Pugh is Professor of English at the University of Central Florida.

Introduction; L.Ramey & T.Pugh PART I: MULTICULTURAL IDENTITIES: A LOST IDEAL? Once, Present and Future Kings: Kingdom of Heaven and the Multi-temporality of Medieval Film; A.Lindley Chahine's Destiny: Prophetic Nostalgia and the Other Middle Ages; D.Hoffman Reversing the Crusades: Hegmony, Orientalism and Film Language in Youssef Chahine's Saladin ; J.Ganim Samurai on Shifting Ground: Negotiating the Medieval and the Modern in Seven Samurai and Yojimbo; R.P.Schiff PART II: BARBARISM AND THE MEDIEVAL OTHER Vikings Through the Eyes of an Arab Ethnographer: Constructions of the Other in The 13th Warrior ; L. Shutters Mission Historical, or "[t]here were a hell of a lot of knights": Ethnicity and Alterity in Jerry Bruckheimer's King Arthur ; C.Jewers Inner-City Chivalry in Gil Junger's Black Knight : A South Central Yankee in King Leo's Court; L.Finke & M.Shichtman Queering the Medieval Dead: History, Horror, and Masculinity in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead Trilogy ; T.Pugh PART III: ROMANTIC VALUES In Praise of Troubadourism: Creating Community in Occupied France, 1942-1943; L.Ramey Sexing Warrior Women in China's Martial Arts World: King Hu's A Touch of Zen ; P.Lorge The Hawk, the Wolf, and the Mouse: Gender and Other in Ladyhawke; A.J.Weisl Chaucer's Man Show: Anachronistic Authority in Brian Helgeland's A Knight's Tale ; H.Crocker The "Other" Women of Sherwood: The Construction of Difference and Gender in Cinematic Treatments of the Robin Hood Legend; L.Stock & C.Gregory