The Once and Future Classroom: Resources for Teaching the Middle Ages
The Once and Future Classroom dedicates itself to encouraging and facilitating medieval studies at the K-12 and college levels. This peer-reviewed online journal is for and by teachers of subjects related to the Middle Ages. We publish various types of work, including:
- accounts for teachers of emerging work in fields of research related to medieval studies
- lesson plans
- critical reviews of web resources, audiovisual materials, and other secondary works suitable for classroom use
- reports on promising new classroom techniques, educational programs, curricula, digital innovations, and methods of evaluating instructional effectiveness
- annotated bibliographies on medieval studies themes
- responses to previous articles
- reviews of literature and films related to medieval studies and directed at children, young adults, and college level adults
Manuscripts and any additional inquiries should be submitted to:
Gale Sigal, Managing Editor
English Department Wake Forest University sigal@wfu.edu
TEAMS Medieval Institute Publications
Medieval Institute Publications at Western Michigan University publishes several series of affordable classroom texts for TEAMS (the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages). Medieval Institute Publications played a founding role in setting up a series of affordable classroom texts with TEAMS. Originally focused on making available accessible editions of Middle English texts, the program has now successfully expanded into translations or facing-page editions and translations from other medieval vernacular languages, biblical and secular commentary genres, historical documents, and musical treatises and works. The most successful editions have today sold more than six thousand copies and have been adopted in classrooms for twenty years or more.
Middle English Texts Series (METS)
The series is designed to make available texts that occupy an important place in the literary and cultural canon but have not been readily obtainable in student editions. The focus is on Middle English literature adjacent to such major authors as Chaucer or Malory. The editions include glosses of difficult words and short introductions on the history of the work, its merits and points of topical interest, and brief bibliographies. Proposals or completed projects to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to Russell Peck, Series Editor, or to Simon Forde, Director and Managing Editor.
Commentary Series
The Commentary Series is designed for classroom use. Its goal is to make available to teachers and students useful examples of the vast tradition of medieval commentary on sacred scripture. The series includes English translations of works written in a number of medieval languages and from various centuries and religious traditions. The series focuses on treatises which have relevance to the many fields of Medieval Studies, including theories of allegory and literature, history of art, music, spirituality, and political thought. The editions include short introductions which set the context and suggest the importance of each work. Proposals or completed manuscripts to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to E. Ann Matter (Emerita, University of Pennsylvania), Series Editor, or to Tyler Cloherty, Acquisitions Editor.
Board Members:
- Thomas E. Burman, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
- John C. Cavidini, University of Notre Dame
- Robert Harris, Jewish Theological Seminary of America (New York)
- Frans van Liere, Calvin College
- Jim O’Donnell, Arizona State University
- Lesley Smith, University of Oxford
Secular Commentary Series
The Secular Commentary Series provides modern English translations of medieval texts that analyze, annotate and explicate classical and vernacular works. Dating from the fourth through the sixteenth century, these texts represent various traditions (grammatical, allegorical, exegetical, academic and humanistic). The works they elucidate include poetry, fiction, history, philosophy and scientific treatises. Each volume of the series contains a critical introduction and select bibliography, a clear prose translation and notes designed to gloss difficult passages. The aim of the series is to support teaching in the broadest sense: the volumes are suitable for the classroom and serve as an aid for scholars and generalist readers across the full range of the humanities. Proposals or completed manuscripts to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to Robert E. Edwards (Pennsylvania State University), Series Editor, or to Tyler Cloherty, Acquisitions Editor.
Documents of Practice Series
The series consists of volumes that contain translations of selected primary documents that illustrate various aspects of the life experience of medieval men and women. By making some of the matter of historical generalization available to students, the series will enliven efforts to understand what medieval people thought and felt as they moved through the major passages of their lives.
Proposals or completed projects to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to Joel T. Rosenthal (Emeritus, State University of New York, Stony Brook, Series Editor, or to Tyler Cloherty, Acquisitions Editor.
Advisory Board:
- William Chester Jordan, Princeton University
- Sara Lipton, Stony Brook University
- Jonathan Rotondo-McCord, Xavier University of Louisiana.
Medieval German Texts in Bilingual Editions Series
The series is designed for classroom use in German and Medieval Studies as well as for the more advanced scholar in fields adjacent to that of German literature: the historian, Latinist, theologian, or romanist who wishes to extend her or his reading and research across those largely artificial borders that still divide medievalists unnecessarily. Proposals or completed manuscripts to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to Sara S. Poor (Princeton University), Series Editor, or to Tyler Cloherty, Acquisitions Editor.
TEAMS Varia Series
The Varia series is designed for the use of both scholar and instructor, and contains works of great originality and import within the medieval canon. Often, these works (e.g., musical treatises or chivalric materials) do not fit neatly into the other TEAMS series—which cover such topics as late medieval English or German vernacular literature, historical documents and religious or secular commentaries; as such, Varia functions as a trove of eclectic sources and studies. Proposals or completed manuscripts to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to Russell Peck, Chair of the TEAMS Editorial Board, or to Tyler Cloherty, Acquisitions Editor.
Also from TEAMS: The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell (DVD)(performed by Linda Marie Zaerr)
This energetic video version of “The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell” presents the entire text in Middle English, but in a format that makes it understandable to general audiences. Costumes, harp music, and a beautiful outdoor setting enhance the storytelling.
This analog to the Wife of Bath’s tale begins with a strange knight threatening King Arthur in the forest. He makes Arthur vow to return in a year and tell him what women desire most: finding the answer is the only thing that will save Arthur, and the only person who can give him that answer is an ugly hag, who will help only if Sir Gawen will marry her.
This 45-minute video is published by the Chaucer Studio for TEAMS, the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Boise State University. It complements an edition of the text published by TEAMS in the Middle English Texts Series—Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales, ed. Thomas Hahn (Kalamazoo, 1995; second printing 2000).
Linda Marie Zaerr has produced the video in collaboration with Videographer Rod Cashin and Harpist Laura Zaerr. Video performance in Middle English narrated by Linda Marie Zaerr. Gothic harp accompaniment by Laura Zaerr. Joint production of The Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Boise State University, and Chaucer Studio.