Revealing New Perspectives

This volume of studies in honor of Stephen G. Nichols by colleagues, friends, and students is called Revealing New Perspectives because that is what his career exemplifies. As both the verb and adjective forms suggest, Steve has undeniably changed the course of medieval studies in ways which have had a global impact that continues to be profound.

He has always been committed to not only contextualizing the intellectual and artistic production of the past in which a work was created, but to considering it also according to the current theoretical optics of our time, since each age has its own set of aesthetic and cultural realities and expectations.

The contributions to this volume by sixteen distinguished medievalists are divided into the five sections of "Visuals," "Lyric," "Philology," "Alterity," and "Rewritings." While it can, of course, be argued that each essay partakes of more than one of these categories, they have been globally organized into the category that predominates in their articulation.

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"The breadth of topic and learning in this celebratory volume are a fitting tribute to the remarkable Stephen Nichols. It would be difficult to imagine a more distinguished international array of colleagues, all writing in warm admiration of Nichols’s pioneering influence in manuscript studies, the visual arts, narrative, drama, and lyric in Italian, Iberian, German, Byzantine Greek, and Middle English as well as French. Kevin Brownlee and Marina S. Brownlee have assembled a vital testament to the ‘pathos and passion of philology’ in its most contemporary and medieval senses."

—Ardis Butterfield, John M. Schiff Professor of English; Professor of French and of Music, Yale University

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"Revealing New Perspectives is a fitting tribute to the pioneering scholarship and ongoing innovation of Stephen Nichols. A volume that includes the fruit of long-standing reflections by some of today’s most eminent medievalists and exciting new work by a number of Nichols’ former students, Revealing New Perspectives offers rich reading for established scholars, and accessible pathways for students to some of medieval studies’ most compelling current issues, including the opportunities for investigation opened up by new technologies and the insights to be gained from engaging with the specificity and complex situatedness of each medieval work."

—Daisy Delogu, Professor of French, University of Chicago

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"The first thing one notices upon perusing this book is the extraordinary list of contributors, a line-up that befits a celebration of Stephen G. Nichols’s impact on medieval studies. These engaging essays reflect the innovativeness and interdisciplinarity of their honoree’s approach, and, in keeping with the spirit of Nichols’s own work, open up intriguing possibilities for further exploration."

—Geri L. Smith, Professor of French and Chair, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, University of Central Florida

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"To honor medievalist and comparatist Stephen G. Nichols, this beautifully illustrated book assembles a roll call of skilled literary critics and historians from across the globe. In five sections, sixteen essays probe texts and topics in English, French, German, Iberian, Italian, and Occitan, from the Middle Ages through the mid-twentieth century. The striking breadth and depth—methodological, linguistic, and chronological—pay fitting tribute to Nichols, whose long and distinguished career has stretched the study of medieval poetry through the creation and application of (just for example) material and digital philology."

—Jan M. Ziolkowski, Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Medieval Latin, Harvard University