Excalibur is not a thing, something you can hold in your hand.
Excalibur is the good in you.
The power to do good, to stand up for what's right, to slay dragons, to capture bank robbers.
You always carry Excalibur in your heart.


Robert Tinnell, Kids of the Round Table (1995)

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

The Holy Grail on Film Updated

Here is the full information about Kevin Harty's new collection:

The Holy Grail on Film: Essays on the Cinematic Quest
Edited by Kevin J. Harty

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-7785-2
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-4766-2053-4
17 photos, notes, bibliographies, index
256pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2015

Buy Now! Price: $45.00
Available for immediate shipment

About the Book
This collection of new essays is the first to study film depictions of the quest for the Holy Grail—the holy Christian relic of legend supposedly used by Jesus at the Last Supper. Scholars from a range of disciplines discuss American, Australian and European films that offer fresh perspectives on this enduring myth of the Arthurian world and Western culture, including The Silver Chalice (1954), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Excalibur (1981), The Road Warrior (1981), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Fisher King (1991), The Da Vinci Code (2006), The Waterboy (1998), and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead (2009).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Holy Grail, Silent Grail (Kevin J. Harty) 7
The Silver Chalice: The Once and Future Grail (K. S. Whetter) 21
Lancelot du lac: Robert Bresson’s Arthurian Realism (Joan Tasker Grimbert) 37
Perceval of the ­Avant-Garde: Rohmer, Blank and von Trier (Alan Baragona) 50
Hans-Jurgen Syberberg’s Parsifal: Remystifying Kundry (Jon Sherman) 67
"Lovely Filth": Monty Python and the Matter of the Holy Grail (Christine M. Neufeld) 81
John Boorman’s Excalibur and the Irrigating Light of the Grail (Raeleen ­Chai-Elsholz with ­Jean-Marc Elsholz) 98
The Da Vinci Code and the Myth of History (Susan Aronstein) 112
Percival in Cooperstown: Arthurian Legend, Baseball Mythology and the Mediated Quest in Barry Levinson’s The Natural (James Jesson) 128
Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King (Cory James Rushton) 143
A Son, His Father, Some Nazis and the Grail: Lucas and Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Joseph M. Sullivan) 158
A Grail or a Mirage? Searching the Wasteland of The Road Warrior (Paul B. Sturtevant) 173
The Grail as Symbolic Quest in Tarkovsky’s Stalker (Andrew B. R. Elliott) 187
The Waterboy and Swamp Chivalry: A Grail Knight for American Teens (Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman) 202
Holy Grail, Schlocky Grail (David W. Marshall) 215
About the Contributors 233
Index 237


About the Editor
Kevin J. Harty, a professor and chair of English, and coordinator of the Undergraduate General Education Core, at La Salle University in Philadelphia and associate editor of Arthuriana, the official journal of the North American Branch of the International Arthurian Society (of which he is the former president), has written 14 books.

Saturday, May 16, 2015

TV Scholarship in Arthuriana

The latest number of Arthuriana is devoted to recent Arthurian-themed television. Contents are available (to subscribers only) at the journal's website (http://arthuriana.org/access/25-1Contents.html) and on Project MUSE (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/arthuriana/toc/art.25.1.html).

Details as follows:

King Arthur in the Twenty-First Century: Kaamelot, BBC’s Merlin, and Starz’s Camelot
Tara Foster & Jon Sherman 3

Kaamelot’s Global Fifth Century
Tara Foster 5

Kaamelot’s Paradox: Lancelot between Subjugation and Individuation
Cédric Briand 22

From ‘Unthinking Stereotype’ to Fearless Antagonist: The Evolution of Morgan le Fay on Television
Cindy Mediavilla 44

Casting, Plotting, and Enchanting: Arthurian Women in Starz’s Camelot and the BBC’s Merlin
Jennifer C. Edwards 57
 
Source, Authority, and Audience in the BBC’s Merlin
Jon Sherman 82
 
Pendragons at the Chopping Block: Elements of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the BBC’s Merlin
Erin Chandler 101

Multiculturalism, Diversity, and Religious Tolerance in Modern Britain and the BBC’s Merlin
David C. Tollerton 113