Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Notes on Contributors -- Abbreviations -- List of Figures -- Introduction -- Part 1 Selfhood and Community -- Chapter 1 Imagination -- Mysticism: The Therapon as Inhuman Partner -- Rhetoric: Can You Hear Me Now? -- Faculty Psychology: Falling to Pieces -- Return to Mysticism -- The Historical Imagination -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 2 Memory -- The Mount of Helicon -- Medieval Memory Theory -- Ethics and Conduct -- Forgetting and the Memories of Others -- The Labyrinth -- References -- Chapter 3 Desire -- Note -- References -- Chapter 4 Gender -- ''He and He'' -- Same Old, Same Old -- Romancing Butler -- Waiting Rooms -- What a Drag -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 5 Sexuality -- Critical Theory and Sexuality -- Sexuality and the Medieval Courtly Vision: The Case of Lydgate's Complaynte of a Lovers Lyfe -- Note -- References -- Chapter 6 Public Interiorities -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 7 Race -- Thinking about Race -- The Composition of Medieval Race -- In Between -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 8 Animality -- Critical Animal Studies -- The Prioress's Tale -- The Nun's Priest's Tale -- Conclusion -- Note -- References -- Part 2 Constructing Texts, Constructing Textual History -- Chapter 9 Authorship -- The Intention of the Author -- The Poet as Orator -- The Poet as Theologian -- The French Connection -- The Name and Nature of Poetry -- The Death of the Author -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 10 Audience -- Audience Power -- Patronal Audiences -- An Ethnography of Audienceship -- Reading Pictures -- Audience after the Fact -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 11 Manuscript -- The Book in Theory -- Blanchot and the Absence of the Book -- Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls and the Book ''Totorn'' -- The PF as a Book -- Note -- References.

Chapter 12 Material Culture -- ''The Dream of Scipio'' -- Pearl as Visionary Artifact -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 13 Genre -- The Tragicomedy of ''Tragedy'' -- What Kind of Thing Is Genre? -- Evidence of Generic Thinking: Metaforms -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 14 Aesthetics -- Medieval Aesthetic Theory -- The Peacock and the Lark: Beauty in Piers Plowman -- Participation, Cognition, and the Vernacular Poetic Tradition -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 15 Canon Formation -- History and the Canon -- Disciplinary Reading -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 16 Periodization -- Definitions and Problems, I: The Middle Ages -- Definitions and Problems, II: Middle English -- When Did Middle English End? -- ''Go, litel boke'': Marking Time in the Early Sixteenth Century -- References -- Part 3 Politics and Places -- Chapter 17 Sovereignty -- Sovereignty and Biopolitics in Havelok the Dane -- Medieval/Modern and the State of Exception -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 18 Class -- Terminology -- Calling -- Revocation and Use -- Apocalyptic Calling in the Late Fourteenth Century -- Note -- References -- Chapter 19 Church -- Perceived and Conceived Space: What the Church Betokeneth -- Lived Space and Practiced Place in The Book of Margery Kempe -- Future Directions: The Church in Cyberspace -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 20 City -- Pedestrian Encounters -- Urban Vantage Points -- Constructing the City: Theorists and Poets -- Composite Approaches, Transhistorical and Multilingual -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 21 Margins -- Exploration, Civilization, Rule -- Quest and Adventure -- Vision and Destiny -- The Otherworld -- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight -- Sir Orfeo -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 22 Ecology -- Of Plants and Men -- Intimacy with Strangers -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 23 Nation -- Christian Nationhood.

Language, Region and Other Collectives -- Critical Nationalism -- Heathen Britain/Pagan England -- Homonationalism -- Note -- References -- Chapter 24 Language -- Culture in Translation -- Fictions of Meaning -- Multilingualism -- Words and the Word -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 25 Postcolonialism -- Imagining Conquest -- Romance and the Displacement of Crusading -- Regarding the Other -- Postcolonialism, Orientalism, and Premodernity -- Postcolonial Medievalists -- How Postcolonial Theory Changes Medieval Literature -- How theMiddle Ages Changes Postcolonial Theory -- Conclusion: Medievalism, Postcolonialism, and Ethics -- References -- Chapter 26 A Global Middle Ages -- Out of Africa Came a Name: Or, How to Read One Word at a Time -- A Fantasy from Persia and Syria: How Paradise and a Civilization Are Miniaturized -- Global Translatio from Asia, Eurasia, Everywhere: The Buddha's Gift of Many Tongues -- Notes -- References -- Index.