-
More Warriors Hedgehogged in Arrows in Popular Culture
This page builds on my essay published in The Year’s Work in Medievalism 33 (2018) titled “Warriors ‘Hedgehogged’ in Arrows: Crusaders, Samurai, and Wolverine in Medieval Chronicles and Popular Culture” (open access!). The basic thesis is that the image of a living warrior covered in arrows was once relegated to medieval chronicles on the Crusades,…
-
Ingres’s Joan of Arc Painting (1854)
One of the most common inspirations I’ve seen for Joan of Arc book covers is Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s 1854 painting entitled Jeanne d’Arc au sacre du roi Charles VII, dans la cathédrale de Reims (Joan of Arc at the coronation of King Charles VII, in the Reims Cathedral). This piece is displayed prominently at the Louvre…
-
Historial Jeanne d’Arc in Rouen
-
Inspiration for the Cauldrons at Kamar-Taj in Dr. Strange in Multiverse of Madness
In Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Strange and America Chavez are on the run from the Scarlet Witch, and they naturally seek refuge at the Kamar-Taj. This fictional place in Katmandu, Nepal is where Strange and other sorcerers trained. There is plenty to look at in the set, which is a hodgepodge…
-
Ringling Bros. Joan of Arc Spectacle Newspaper Ad (1913)
In 1913, Al Ringling kept Joan of Arc as the theme for the 45-minute spectacle that preceded each Ringling Bros. circus show. That meant that targeted towns saw a lot of Joan of Arc-related advertising like this one in the Taunton Daily Gazette (June 7). Ads like these appeared in newspapers all over America in…
-
CFP-Teaching Joan of Arc and Her World in and out of the Classroom
Call for Papers sponsored by The International Joan of Arc Society/Société Internationale de l’étude de Jeanne d’Arc International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS 2023)May 11 to 13, 2023 Western Michigan University In his translation of Joan of Arc’s 1431 condemnation trial, Daniel Hobbins instructed his readers that the defendant “was not a contradiction to her…
-
Channeling Joan of Arc in Doom: Annihilation (2019)
This week, The Year’s Work in Medievalism published my paper “Channeling Joan of Arc in Doom: Annihilation (2019)” examining the latest Doom movie directed by Tony Giglio. It is available for free via open access, but here are some of the highlights. Writer/Director Tony Giglio chose a female lead for Doom: Annihilation, the first in…
-
A Hedgehog of Arrows in Zack Snyder’s Justice League
In a paper published in The Year’s Work in Medievalism, I followed the trend of depicting living armored warriors covered with arrows from medieval chronicles to Samurai films to comic books. The image continues to find prevalence in popular culture, and I made the following conclusion The spectacle of a hedgehogged warrior is emerging in…
-
A Flower in a Field of Lions: The Trials of Joan of Arc
In 2018, I had the privilege of writing the afterword for Tapestry Comics’ graphic novel A Flower in a Field of Lions: The Story of Joan of Arc. The editor has allowed me to publish the complete text here. Afterword Regardless of how academic they are, historians still get hyperbolic about Joan of Arc. Depending…
-
Warriors “Hedgehogged” in Arrows: Crusaders, Samurai, and Wolverine
I’m thrilled to share that my paper on warriors riddled with arrows found in medieval Muslim/Christian chronicles, comics, films, and television, can be read in the latest volume of This Year’s Work in Medievalism (open access). This is my first publication in a peer-reviewed journal and it feels like I completed a dare by drawing…
-
Joan of Arc Panels at Kalamazoo 2020
The official program for 55th International Congress on Medieval Studies is now live! The International Joan of Arc Society has two panels organized by Tara Beth Smithson and yours truly. We are humbled to have been the stewards for the society’s sessions this year. We have an impressive array of topics and scholars–there are at…
-
Book Review: Joan of Arc in the English Imagination
In this book review published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, I examine Gail Orgelfinger’s new Joan of Arc book that uncovers four centuries of English opinions on Joan, a messy collage of misogyny, nationalism, guilt, justification, inquisition, and awe surrounding her legacy.
