American Medieval

This episode ranges over 19th-century history and why they thought of the Middle Ages as vibes, to the vast varieties of experiences of minority communities in medieval Europe, to how Putin uses the Middle Ages politically in contemporary Russia. Plus we righteously hate on Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations.”

Guest
Eugene Smelyansky is an Assistant Professor of History at Washington State University, specializing in persecution and marginalization in late medieval Europe, and the uses and abuses of the medieval past during later periods. He is the author of Heresy and Citizenship: Persecution of Heresy in Late Medieval German Cities, The Intolerant Middle Ages: A Reader, and, most recently, Medievalisms and Russia: The Contest for Imaginary Pasts. His website is eugene-smelyansky.com

Credits
Host & Executive Producer: Matthew Gabriele. Find him on Bluesky @profgabriele.com or his homepage profgabriele.com
Editor: Julia Schifini
Music: “Sleeping Bags” by OTE
Art: Ulysses Gabriele
Multitude: https://multitude.productions

Find American Medieval Online
Website: AmericanMedieval.com
Patreon: patreon.com/AmericanMedieval
Insta: instagram.com/americanmedieval
YouTube: youtube.com/@AmericanMedieval
Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/americanmedieval.bsky.social

About Us
American Medieval is a podcast about the Middle Ages, but with an American twist. Each week, joined by expert guests, we’ll explore either some fascinating part of the medieval world, or some way Americans have used this period to help them understand themselves.
After all, if America has never been modern, it’s because we’ve always been slightly medieval.
Want to become a sponsor of American Medieval? Head over to https://multitude.productions/ads

Sponsors
Simple and Clean is a show where hosts Mischa Stanton and Mayanna Berrin (and friends) talk about Kingdom Hearts, a little video game franchise about really big feelings. Join us as we discuss the plot, characters, world building, music, fashion, fanbase, and more. Never heard of Kingdom Hearts? That’s okay! They're here to break it down for you, explain why they love it, and hopefully to convince you that this weird little story deserves a place in your heart. New episodes every Sunday, wherever you listen to podcasts!

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode focuses mostly on medieval Islam, including a cool medieval epic about a warrior woman and her son. But also we talk about why theory is good (it is), and how medievals - not just in the Islamicate world - thought about enslaved peoples and race difference. It’s different, but kind of similar, to how we do today.

Guest
Rachel Schine is an assistant professor of Arabic and History at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on racialization and Afro-Arab connections in the medieval Islamic world. Her first book, Black Knights: Arabic Epic and the Making of Medieval Race, was awarded the Middle East Medievalists' Book Prize, and work on her second book is currently supported by a membership at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. You can follow her on Bluesky at @rachelschine.bsky.social.

Credits
Host & Executive Producer: Matthew Gabriele. Find him on Bluesky @profgabriele.com or his homepage profgabriele.com
Editor: Julia Schifini
Music: “Sleeping Bags” by OTE
Art: Ulysses Gabriele
Multitude: https://multitude.productions

Find American Medieval Online
Website: AmericanMedieval.com
Patreon: patreon.com/AmericanMedieval
Insta: instagram.com/americanmedieval
YouTube: youtube.com/@AmericanMedieval
Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/americanmedieval.bsky.social

About Us
American Medieval is a podcast about the Middle Ages, but with an American twist. Each week, joined by expert guests, we’ll explore either some fascinating part of the medieval world, or some way Americans have used this period to help them understand themselves.
After all, if America has never been modern, it’s because we’ve always been slightly medieval.
Want to become a sponsor of American Medieval? Head over to https://multitude.productions/ads

Sponsors
Just a reminder to check out one of my favorite other podcasts, This Guy Sucked - another sibling show on Multitude. It's a history podcast for haters by haters. Join historian Dr. Claire Alban and a new expert every week to see why no dead person is safe. Everyone from Charlemagne to James the Second to Phyllis Schlafly. They all sucked in their own way. New episodes every Thursday. Check it out now.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Prof. Gabriele and Thomas talk about holy war and the end of the world and why early white Americans were kind of like medieval Europeans.

Guest
Thomas Lecaque is an Associate Professor of History and the Director of the First Year Experience at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, located on Baxoje, Meskwaki and Sauk lands. His primary research area is on religious violence and apocalypticism from the crusades of the High Middle Ages through the holy wars of colonial North America, but he teaches broadly in the medieval world, vast early America, and game studies. He can also be found on Bluesky at @tlecaque.bsky.social and on LinkedIn.

Credits
Host & Executive Producer: Matthew Gabriele. Find him on Bluesky @profgabriele.com or his homepage profgabriele.com
Editor: Julia Schifini
Music: “Sleeping Bags” by OTE
Art: Ulysses Gabriele
Multitude: https://multitude.productions

Find American Medieval Online
Website: AmericanMedieval.com
Patreon: patreon.com/AmericanMedieval
Insta: instagram.com/americanmedieval
YouTube: youtube.com/@AmericanMedieval
Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/americanmedieval.bsky.social

About Us
American Medieval is a podcast about the Middle Ages, but with an American twist. Each week, joined by expert guests, we’ll explore either some fascinating part of the medieval world, or some way Americans have used this period to help them understand themselves.
After all, if America has never been modern, it’s because we’ve always been slightly medieval.
Want to become a sponsor of American Medieval? Head over to https://multitude.productions/ads

Sponsors
Pale Blue Pod is an astronomy podcast for people who are overwhelmed by the universe but want to be its friend. Astrophysicist Dr. Moiya McTier and her best friend ConStar demystify space one topic at a time with open eyes, open arms, and open mouths (from so much laughing and jaw-dropping). By the end of each episode, the cosmos will feel a little less “ahhh too scary” and a lot more “ohhh, so cool!” New episodes every Monday.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Prof. Gabriele and guests today are talking about sex, baby. About you and me. About all the good things and the bad things that may be. Sorry. But we are talking about medieval sex and desire with Nancy Thebaut and Melanie Holcomb, who have co-curated the great exhibition “Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages” at the Cloisters Museum in NYC.

Guests
Nancy Thebaut is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Oxford & tutorial fellow at St Catherine’s College. Her research interests range widely, from Carolingian & Ottonian liturgical manuscripts to the study of gender & sexuality across media.

Melanie Holcomb is a curator in the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she has organized or co-organized numerous exhibitions including Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages (2009), Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven (2016). Melanie’s projects have been fueled by a career-long fascination with how art works—the functions it serves and methods it uses to communicate.

Credits
Host & Executive Producer: Matthew Gabriele. Find him on Bluesky @profgabriele.com or his homepage profgabriele.com
Editor: Julia Schifini
Music: “Sleeping Bags” by OTE
Art: Ulysses Gabriele
Multitude: https://multitude.productions

Find American Medieval Online
Website: AmericanMedieval.com
Patreon: patreon.com/AmericanMedieval
Insta: instagram.com/americanmedieval
YouTube: youtube.com/@AmericanMedieval
Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/americanmedieval.bsky.social

About Us
American Medieval is a podcast about the Middle Ages, but with an American twist. Each week, joined by expert guests, we’ll explore either some fascinating part of the medieval world, or some way Americans have used this period to help them understand themselves.
After all, if America has never been modern, it’s because we’ve always been slightly medieval.
Want to become a sponsor of American Medieval? Head over to https://multitude.productions/ads

Sponsors
Since you're listening to a podcast, why not another sibling podcast from Multitude? Wow, if true, is your one-stop internet culture shop explaining how what's happening online shapes the world. The hosts, tech culture journalist Amanda Silberling and science fiction author slash attorney Isabel J. Kim Esquire, ask those burning questions on everyone's minds. I mean, they've talked about heated rivalry, how chat GPT sucks and and enshitification, among other things. Check out the podcast now.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Enjoy this special collab episode with "Wow if True," a podcast on internet culture and sibling in the Multitude Collective. Prof. Gabriele, Isabel J. Kim, and Amanda Silberling talk about your most favorite (and least favorite) medieval memes and various other internet stuff.

Guests
See more about Amanda and Isabel at this link.
You already know about Prof. Gabriele.

Credits
Host & Executive Producer: Matthew Gabriele. Find him on Bluesky @profgabriele.com or his homepage profgabriele.com
Editor: Julia Schifini
Music: “Sleeping Bags” by OTE
Art: Ulysses Gabriele
Multitude: https://multitude.productions

Find American Medieval Online
Website: AmericanMedieval.com
Patreon: patreon.com/AmericanMedieval
Insta: instagram.com/americanmedieval
YouTube: youtube.com/@AmericanMedieval
Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/americanmedieval.bsky.social

About Us
American Medieval is a podcast about the Middle Ages, but with an American twist. Each week, joined by expert guests, we’ll explore either some fascinating part of the medieval world, or some way Americans have used this period to help them understand themselves.
After all, if America has never been modern, it’s because we’ve always been slightly medieval.
Want to become a sponsor of American Medieval? Head over to https://multitude.productions/ads

Sponsors
Tiny Matters is an award-winning podcast about tiny things, from molecules to microbes, that have a big and often surprising impact on society. Hosts and former scientists Sam Jones and Deboki Chakravarti embrace the awe and messiness of science, and you can learn about bunny pregnancy tests in the Milky Way and the Iron Lung, for example. I mean, that's all pretty cool, right? Anyway, this sibling pod from Multitude is brought to you by the American Chemical Society, a nonprofit scientific organization based in Washington DC. Look for new episodes every Wednesday.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.