Publications

London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023. Amazon

Joan of Arc is the most recognizable woman from medieval Europe, yet the details of her life remain obscure to the general public while heavily debated by specialists. Rising from obscurity to insert herself into the court of French King Charles VII before marching with his armies to combat the enemies of the crown during the Hundred Years War, she was eventually captured, tried in an inquisition, and then executed as a relapsed heretic at the age of 19.

Joan of Arc: A Reference Guide of Her Life and Works focuses on her life, and legacy. It features a chronology, an introduction offers a brief account of her life, a dictionary section lists entries on people, groups, places, events, topics, terms, and medieval documents central to Joan’s life including her letters, contemporary perspectives, her condemnation trial, and the nullification proceedings eventually blessed by the pope to overturn the verdict of the condemnation trial. This book aims to provide an understanding not just of Joan, but of the culture that produced and ultimately destroyed her.

Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal 51.1 (2022): 18-31.

Only one Joan of Arc film—Cecil B. DeMille’s silent film Joan the Woman (1916)— depicts Joan providing any sort of direction to gunners. Given this anomaly in the cinematic tradition of Joan of Arc, this paper focuses on what influenced DeMille to depict gunpowder artillery as he did in the film. The inclusion of gunpowder artillery was a mid-production decision, and DeMille’s aesthetic mimicked what was readily available to him through Joan of Arc exhibitions and ephemera from the Ringling Bros. Circus, both of which distributed and even copied the works of Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel.

The DC Comics Universe: Critical Essays, ed. Douglas Brode, 214-224 (Jefferson: McFarland, 2022).

This chapter examines Geoff Johns’ method of incorporating the classics into his writing stint of DC Comics’ Justice League during the New 52 era (2011-2016). This form of classical reception is successful in exposing readers to Greek history and myth from such authors as Homer and Thucydides. In addition, Johns’ approach ensures that the reader understands they are encountering “real” history and myth, as opposed to the appropriated classical names and places that have been reconfigured for Wonder Woman’s larger meta-narrative since her first appearance in comics. This approach follows in the footsteps of classical historians, poets, and playwrights who often evoke history and myth to increase the drama of the moment and add legitimacy to their stories. In addition, it is an approach that Johns’ has since taken to the big screen with films such as Warner Bros.’ Aquaman (2018).

Studies in Medievalism XXX (2021): 229-252.

The Ringling Bros. circus was the biggest promoter of Joan of Arc’s story in American popular culture in 1912 and 1913. As this was right in the middle of the country’s infatuation with the Maid, between her beatification (1909) and her canonization (1920), it is worth understanding how they reached such an apex, as well as the story they told. The Ringling Bros.’ version of Joan of Arc is complex owing to the multiple mediums the circus employed – couriers, librettos, heralds, newspapers, posters, and of course, the performances. Through the text, would-be circusgoers read Al Ringling’s romanticized, promotional copy emphasizing piety and patriotism, presented alongside a smattering of conflicting Victorian images of Joan that downplayed her struggles and execution. Through posters and performances, circusgoers were exposed to Ringling’s anachronistic sixteenth-century style French court, complete with a modern ballet and original images, that always kept Joan far from danger and never finished her story. Through this careful exploitation of the life of the Maid, Ringling Bros. achieved acclaim for their “historical accuracy” by providing circusgoers what they expected in costumes and pageantry while any of Joan of Arc’s struggles were deemed barely fit for print, and certainly not fit for spectacle.

The Year’s Work in Medievalism 34 (2019): 18-31. (PDF, HTML)

When writer and director Tony Giglio crafted a female lead for his sci-fi horror film Doom: Annihilation (2019; inspired by the popular Doom video games by id Software), he was influenced by a combination of Terminator’s Sarah Connor, Alien’s Ellen Ripley, and Joan of Arc, the latter of which he attributed to his twelve years of Catholic school. Lt. Joan Dark, played by Amy Manson, is part of a team of UAC Marine Special Ops that encounter fireball-throwing demons from Hell. On the surface, the comparisons end at the character’s name; a deeper reading of Doom: Annihilation, however, reveals that Joan Dark channels much of her namesake’s romanticized plot while also moving outside the director’s original aesthetic vision to provide parallels for often neglected aspects in Joan of Arc’s military career, particularly after her failure at Paris. Understanding the film’s inspiration and links, intentional or otherwise, to Joan of Arc’s story provides a creative tool for exploring an oversaturated yet complex medieval figure.

The Year’s Work in Medievalism 33 (2018): 62-77. (PDF)

Abstract: For over four decades, comic book writers and filmmakers have found creative ways to torture Marvel Comics’ Wolverine. One method that has evolved since Frank Miller tackled the character in 1982 is filling his body with arrows. The mutant’s metallic skeleton coupled with his quick-healing superpower make him the ideal pincushion for these ancient projectiles in comic books and film. However, the image of a living human covered in arrows is medieval. Furthermore, the image of a living warrior covered in arrows is an image almost entirely relegated to Muslim and Christian chronicles of the Crusades, in which the writers typically associated the spectacle with a hedgehog. This paper examines medieval accounts of armored warriors likened to hedgehogs covered in arrows throughout the Crusades and how Wolverine has been the bridge for such a spectacle in popular culture, extracting it out of obscure medieval chronicles and proliferating it through comic books, film, television, and beer commercials.

Saber and Scroll Journal 2, no. 3 (Summer 2013): 84-94.

Abstract: For more than a century, historians have identified the Battle of Falkirk (1298) as a turning point in infantry tactics, not only for the Scots but also for warfare in the Western World. In his seminal work on military history, Hans Delbrück (1848-1929) wrote that Falkirk was unique, concluding “nowhere else in the Middle Ages do we find such great masses of foot soldiers who do not immediately break ranks when attacked by knights.” Delbrück was referring to the spearmen organized by Scottish Guardian William Wallace (d. 1305) in a battle that he lost against English King Edward I (r. 1272-1307). Delbrück is not alone in his assertion that Falkirk initiated, or at least preceded some revolutionary method for using foot soldiers, as the claim persists in numerous modern works. Remarkably, there was nothing new about the Scots’ tactics, but Falkirk remains popular in modern memory, predominately due to high profile participants such as Wallace and Edward, the former a national hero, as well as a dense library of contemporary and modern histories. In an attempt to neatly categorize transitions and trends in warfare, historians have erroneously identified Falkirk as the beginning of an era where infantry alone won battles, or at least stood up to cavalry, but in reality such infantry-centric achievements were occurring more than a century prior in the Western World.

Medieval Warfare 9, no. 2 (2019): 6-11.

This article examines Joan of Arc at the Battle of Jargeau (1429), focusing on the strategies and tactics of the English and French armies, as well as the reception and criticism by military historians.

The article features maps by Tina Ross and artwork by Marek Szyszko depicting Joan’s wounding at the battle, published here for the first time.

[Graphic Novel] (Phoenix: Tapestry Comics, 2018).

In 2018, Scott 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 work was written by Tyler Button with art by Ryan Cody, depicting the story of Joan of Arc in some 140 pages.

The Afterward focuses on the artistic depictions, popularity, and difficulty of the story of Joan that artists, historians, and onlookers have grappled with for centuries.

Finest Hour 145 (Winter 2009-10): 24-26. (pdf)

Churchill has been accused of ignoring pleas for food from Germany after World War I, most recently by Patrick J. Buchanan, who claims there is “no supporting evidence that Churchill ever made any sustained effort” to end the suffering. Well, here is the supporting evidence.