The German & Slavic Studies Department is hosting a public guest lecture by Dr. Markus Stock (University of Toronto) titled Coming to Court: Recognition and Identity in Arthurian Romance. The lecture will be held Thursday, March 19 in ML 245.
Finding out who you are and where you belong is a foundational concern of High Medieval Arthurian Romance. Markus Stock takes a fresh, close look at two highly successful medieval German Arthurian romances from the 13th Century, Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and Wirnt von Grafenberg's Wigalois. By focussing on the threshold moments when the young protagonists first arrive at Arthur's court, Stock explores the ways in which medieval aristocratic identity is established via intricate social interactions and practices involving mutual recognition and (mis-) identification.
Dr. Markus Stock is Chair of the Department of Germanic Languages
and Literatures and Associate Professor of German and Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. His research centres on twelfth- and thirteenth-century romance and Minnesang, the medieval reception of legends on Alexander the Great, and medieval spatial practices.