Recent Scholarship from Arthuriana Spring 2025

The previous number of Arthuriana, volume 35, number 1, for Spring 2025, is now available and can be read for free as open-access content from Project MUSE at https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/54796. 

This is a special "crossover" issue with the journal's Public Humanities Project, The So What, and guest edited by Jonathan F. Correa Reyes and includes two items that focus on comics (plus some comments in Correa Reyes's introduction). 

Subscriptions are also available at https://www.arthuriana.com/subscribe.  

Table of Contents 

(35.1)

Medieval Studies as a Public Good

Jonathan F. Correa Reyes

This introductory essay argues that Public Humanities frameworks can help medievalists re-establish our credibility with publics beyond the academy and embrace more collaborative models of knowledge production. Extending our reach beyond academic institutions will help us demonstrate the value of medieval studies as a public good. (JFCR)

From Chile to Camelot: Reception of the Arthurian Arc of Mampato and Ogú

Jonathan F. Correa Reyes and Camila Gutiérrez

This essay analyzes how the Arthurian arc of the Chilean comic Mampato and Ogú challenges the neocolonial rhetorics that cast Chile as a stagnant country, and how it afforded Chileans an opportunity to participate in a global cultural current of Arthurian adaptations. We discuss the meanings that the Arthurian motifs may have acquired during two very different political atmospheres: the years preceding Salvador Allende's democratic election and the onset of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. (JFCR & CG)

Unexpected Swords in the Stone

Brenna Duperron

The Arthurian legends are well-known for their knights-in-shining armour, quests, chivalry, supernatural encounters, and of course, swords being pulled out of stones. The use of the 'sword-in-the-stone' trope allows the 21st century superhero films to play with and reinvent the implications of a 'true right to rule,' and the bodies that are expected to fill those roles. (BD)

Eden on Adaptations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

From the latest number of Arthuriana, includes some discussion of comics.

Eden, Michael. "Representing: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Arthuriana, vol. 34 no. 2, 2024, p. 16-61. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/art.2024.a932121.

This article explores what we can learn from creative responses to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which comprises a growing visual language, inclusive of the original images of the codex, the illustrations of popular translations, contemporary artworks that respond to the poem, and the recent film adaptation. (ME)

Sell's Work on Arthurian Comics

Carl B. Sell has been producing a number of intriguing studies related to the Matter of Britain in  popular culture, including these recent publications on Arthurian-themed comics:

Sell, Carl B. “Aquaman Rex: The Arthurian Associations of a DC Superhero.” The DC Comics Universe: Critical Essays, edited by Douglas Brode. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2020. 158-69. Academia.Edu, https://www.academia.edu/91857597/Aquaman_Rex_The_Arthurian_Associations_of_a_DC_Superhero.

___. “Camelot 3000 and Dracula vs. King Arthur: The Uses of Limited-Run Comics as Updates of the Arthurian Legend for Contemporary Readers.” Arthurian Legend in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries, edited by Susan L. Austin. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2021. 25-34. Academia.Edu, https://www.academia.edu/73478606/Camelot_3000_and_Dracula_vs_King_Arthur_The_uses_of_limited_run_comics_as_updates_of_the_Arthurian_legend_for_contemporary_readers. 

___. “The Once and Future King of Atlantis: The Arthurian Figure in Geoff Johns's Aquaman: Death of a King.” Arthurian Literature, vol. 35, 2020, pp. 192-99. Academia.Edu, https://www.academia.edu/43619244/The_Once_and_Future_King_of_Atlantis_The_Arthurian_Figure_in_Geoff_Johnss_Aquaman_Death_of_a_King.

Neal on Far Sector

 From a recent issue of Arthuriana:

Neal, D'arcee Charington. "Who is Asking?: Afro-Arthurian Legend-making in N.K. Jemisin's Far Sector." Arthuriana, vol. 33 no. 3, Fall 2023, p. 86-103. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/art.2023.a910872.

Abstract:

Whether an Arthurian knight, a Green Lantern, or a Legendborn, one cannot have a legacy without first becoming a legend. In N.K. Jemisin's graphic novel Far Sector (2020) Sojourner 'Jo' Muellein's story as both community activist and guardian echoes, reinvents, and reimagines Arthurian romances through the lens of Afrofuturism; further, this fantastical remix challenges white supremacist modes of oppressive comic tradition by foregrounding racial and gendered identities. Making a legend is not about whom society has agreed to be the answer. Instead, such ideals lie with whoever asks the question. (DCN)

Casebier on Le Chevalier et la Charrette

 Out now in the Journal of the International Arthurian Society:

Casebier, Karen. "Deviant Characters and the Limits of Inventio in ‘Le Chevalier et la Charrette’" Journal of the International Arthurian Society, vol. 10, no. 1, 2022, pp. 94-113. https://doi.org/10.1515/jias-2022-0007

Abstract

This essay will examine the characterisation of the principal characters and events in ‘Le Chevalier et la Charrette’, a contemporary graphic novel adaption of the Méléagant episode based on Chrétien de Troyes’s  Le Chevalier de la charrette , by applying Mieke Bal’s classic study on narratology, in which legendary and ‘deviant’ characters evoke reactions of surprise or revulsion in the reader. The first section will address the limits of  inventio  in the portrayal of Lancelot, a legendary character whose behaviour and actions are somewhat limited by the reader’s background knowledge of him, whereas the remainder of the essay will focus on the use of the Lady of the Lake as a deviant character in the Méléagant episode. In the graphic novella, the Lady of the Lake is reinvented as a representation of Ankou, the servant of Death in Breton folklore. This allows the author and illustrator of the graphic novella to take advantage of the lacunae in the reader’s background knowledge to present a previously unknown facet of the Lady of the Lake’s character that bridges the gap between literary adaptation and literary appropriation, thereby resulting in a new cultural product that links medieval Arthurian legend to traditional Breton mythology.