Celia Chazelle

This is a really interesting collection which addresses the question of why the Middle Ages are relevant when considering modern problems—how it is that people who lived and died over a millennium ago may be able to provide us, if not always with answers to modern social problems, then with new ways of approaching those social problems. Not all of the essays are equally well thought out, and there is at times a tendency for very important terms (such as "power" or "community") to go undefined, or occasionally even to mean different things even within the same essay. Yet those essays which are strong—Felice Lifshitz's on the anti-feminism masquerading as faux feminism in The Da Vinci Code or Dyan Elliot's on clerical sexual scandals—are very thought-provoking, and the collection as a whole is well worth a read. I think it should be of interest to not just graduate students and faculty, but even the interested lay person or upper level undergraduates.… (más)