Hilary Rhodes | Maryville University (original) (raw)

Papers by Hilary Rhodes

Open library of humanities, Jan 19, 2033

This article explores King Richard I of England (r. 1189-99) and the medieval and modern historio... more This article explores King Richard I of England (r. 1189-99) and the medieval and modern historiography on the subjects of 1) his contested sexuality and 2) his participation in the Third Crusade (1187-92). In addition to demonstrating that the evidence of his queerness is both considerable and unambiguous, the article investigates how Richard's political and cultural legacy has been used and re-used, how his status as an English national hero has been increasingly called into question, and how modern anxieties about the medieval crusades have driven the need to reconfigure his historical memory. It also briefly touches upon questions of 'religious' versus 'secular' violence, transhistorical Christian-Muslim relations, and the problematic and enduring mythology of the crusades in modern and post-Brexit Britain, especially in regard to the epistemological legacy of the Western Christian world, its historical empire-building and other projects in which the crusades have played a major role, and the ongoing reckoning and reshaping of these ideas. Lastly, it proposes new concepts of premodern queer memory and the academic practice of queer history, and calls for the creation of an analytical space that assertively centres these complexities.

Quidditas, 2021

A broad address on some of the reactions, rhetorical strategies, challenges, and questions that a... more A broad address on some of the reactions, rhetorical strategies, challenges, and questions that are engendered in the process of teaching, discussing, and writing about medieval queer history, both in conversation with undergraduate students and ordinary laypeople, and in the practice of formal academic scholarship. Presented at the American Historical Association Virtual AHA panel, "Teaching Premodern Women and Gender," February 2021.

Quidditas, 2021

In her influential History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism, Judith Bennett aske... more In her influential History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism, Judith Bennett asked “Who’s afraid of the distant past?” Fifteen years after this book’s publication, the question remains relevant. Teaching the history of women and gender in the premodern world presents linked pedagogical challenges. Most students enter college with little to no background in premodern history. Many find premodern primary sources, when taught with the same pedagogical scaffolding as modern sources, inaccessible due to real or perceived strangeness. These challenges can be compounded by the challenges of teaching women’s and/or gender history. This roundtable addresses strategies for productive pedagogy — in both curriculum design and student engagement — in areas of history that may be doubly unfamiliar to undergraduates.

, for allowing my participation in the crusades conferences hosted there in 2015 and 2016, as wel... more , for allowing my participation in the crusades conferences hosted there in 2015 and 2016, as well as to Dr Kathryn Hurlock at Manchester Metropolitan University for the same in 2018. My studies have been funded by a School of History scholarship from the University of Leeds, and partially by my work in the Education Outreach office. I would like to thank Emma Chippendale and Joanna Phillips particularly for their help in administration and oversight. A research visit to the Centre d'études supérieures de civilisation médiévale at the University of Poitiers in 2018 was made possible by Leeds' Research Fund and Extraordinary Fund, and I am grateful to Professor Martin Aurell and the staff and faculty at the CESCM for their helpfulness and hospitality. Ongoing professional development events and major opportunities, such as the annual International Medieval Congress, have further enriched my experience at Leeds. I am also in gratitude to Liz Oxley at the university counselling centre. I likewise appreciate the various Hilary Rhodes-PhD Thesis 4 coffee shops across campus, and the city of Leeds more generally, where I have spent many enjoyable hours working on both academic and non-academic pursuits. Personally, I am in the greatest debts of all, in many ways, to friends and family. My parents, Kevin and Janet, for unending optimism, steadfast support, and generous financial assistance. My sister Gillian, for her bravery, example, and belief, and my sister Darcy, for always persevering. My dear friend Sigita, for company, support, London and Leeds weekends, and eating well. To Svenja, Emily, Liv, and Ioana for taking me around Ireland, Portsmouth, the Harry Potter studios, and Romania, to Sarah, for generous gifts and personal support, and Annie, for an excellent Edinburgh day trip. To Lucy, for IMS meetups and late-stage dissertation care packages. To my friends both near and far, who have been generous and inspiring and funny and vital in too many ways to count. Most particularly to Adrienne and Christine, my invaluable and near-constant virtual companions, for keeping me sane, engaged, and entertained through several years. (Any insanity is my own fault.) I'm quite sure I could not have done it without you. And lastly, of course, to William. It's all his fault I'm here.

The author's M.A. thesis, tracing the intellectual and physical history of the concept of "crusad... more The author's M.A. thesis, tracing the intellectual and physical history of the concept of "crusade" from its earliest genesis to its modern-day, post-9/11 incarnations, with particular focus on its medieval justifications and criticisms, the connection of crusading to European colonial projects of the 15th century on, and its reinvention in the digital age as a strategy for both Islamic extremists and Euro-American intelligentsia. Concludes that the crusade model of violence, not just as a temporal period but a scholarly hermeneutic, has profoundly and permanently shaped Western history, and cannot be dissociated from it.

This paper approaches a study of the development of Middle English by carefully situating it with... more This paper approaches a study of the development of Middle English by carefully situating it within its external as well as its internal history. It opens with an examination of the relevant historical and linguistic background, before moving into a detailed look at the influence of French at each level of the language: phonological, orthographical, morpho-syntactical, lexical, and literary. It then explains these developments within the politics and culture of eleventh and twelfth-century England, before looking at the slow revivification of English beginning in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In short, it takes into account both the structural and social considerations of the Norman Conquest on the language, and traces the process of how English emerged on the far side still fairly systematically intact, but deeply and permanently changed by its osmosis with French.

Studies the message of late American-born Islamic extremist, Anwar al-Awlaki, and analyzes it thr... more Studies the message of late American-born Islamic extremist, Anwar al-Awlaki, and analyzes it through a framework of political theory and rhetoric, to rescue dialogue about religion from the othering construct of "irrationality" and help to make sense of the ongoing "war on terror."

This paper begins with a look at the American Religious Right, stemming from its roots in the tro... more This paper begins with a look at the American Religious Right, stemming from its roots in the troubled racial politics of the 1960s and its consolidation and rise to power in the 1970s and 1980s. It will then consider how its repertoire has been largely narrowed to a pair of hot-button social issues – abortion and gay marriage – and critically evaluate the claim as to whether we are living in a “post-Religious Right” world. Secondly, it will assess the possibility for a new liberal coalition, a so-called “Religious Left,” and which social groups might possibly form the basis of such an effort. While understanding that the delicate interface of religion and politics must be treated with care and is a highly subjective matter, it will seek to unite the good intentions of liberal political theory with the driving moral and spiritual fulfillment of religion at its best.

In this paper, I examine the many and complex ways in which the popular television show "Supernat... more In this paper, I examine the many and complex ways in which the popular television show "Supernatural" engages religion and its own nature as a story about origin stories. I begin with a brief overview of the show and main characters, examining the ways in which the internal logic of the story itself is structured around familiar allegorical lines. I conclude that both positively and negatively, Supernatural is in fact an important postmodern religious hypertext and commentary cunningly disguised as a secular fantasy-horror television program, and boldly reinscribes its theological and social space in oftentimes radically subversive ways.

Books by Hilary Rhodes

Brepols, 2020

The Crown and the Cross examines the heretofore-unstudied role of the French province of Burgundy... more The Crown and the Cross examines the heretofore-unstudied role of the French province of Burgundy in the ‘traditional’ era of the crusades, from 1095–c.1220. Covering the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Albigensian Crusades in detail, it focuses primarily on the Capetian dukes, a cadet branch of the French royal family, but uncovers substantial lay participation and some crusading traditions among Burgundian noble families as well. The book additionally uses the crusading institution to explore the development of the medieval French monarchy, and makes accessible a corpus of scholarship and documents that until now have mostly existed in French or Latin. It concludes that while piety and religion did play a central role in the experience of many everyday Burgundian crusaders, the greater political ramifications of the crusading project functioned in subtle and long-lasting ways, and had consequences for the entire institution, not just Burgundy or France. Of interest to scholars of the crusades, French history, and the formation of medieval Europe, The Crown and the Cross nuances, challenges, and expands our understanding of the intellectual genealogy of the crusades and their real-world consequences, fills a critical gap in the historiography, and poses a set of important conclusions and questions for continued study.

Engaging The Crusades, Vol. II: The Crusades in the Modern World, 2019

Since the events of 11 September 2001, and the deployment of a political, social, and cultural di... more Since the events of 11 September 2001, and the deployment of a political, social, and cultural discourse around the ‘War on Terror’, perhaps no area of medieval studies has enjoyed more of a resurgence than crusade scholarship, attempting to connect this modern-day phenomenon with its historical iterations. The original crusades, a series of military engagements that took place largely in the Middle East and were sponsored by the Catholic church and powerful European warrior princes, are generally held to have spanned the 200 years from 1095 to 1291, and laid the groundwork for a millennium of troubled relations between ‘the West and the Rest’: a supposedly incompatible frontier of competing cultures, embedded in a distinct values-hierarchy. In this model, whereas one (the West) is rational, secular, forward, progressive, tolerant, humane, and civilised, the other (the Rest) is irrational, sectarian, backward, static, intolerant, inhumane, and uncivilised. This problematic paradigm, articulated most influentially in Samuel Huntington’s ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, has been central to the crafting of U.S. foreign policy over decades. The rise of ISIS has also featured a nearly ubiquitous characterisation of it as ‘medieval,’ ‘barbaric’, or otherwise synonymous with the ‘stone age’, with a strong implication that this sort of violence is unknown to the Western societies they are attacking. The role of an ‘imagined medieval’ in this particular conflict is thus paramount – and arguably quite dishonest.

Conference Presentations by Hilary Rhodes

Open library of humanities, Jan 19, 2033

Quidditas, 2021

Brepols, 2020

Engaging The Crusades, Vol. II: The Crusades in the Modern World, 2019