Medieval Literature and Postcolonial Studies

Lisa Lampert-Weissig, Medieval Literature and Postcolonial Studies, Postcolonial literary Studies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010). xli + 188 pp. ISBN 978-0-7486-3718-8. £19.99.

In this extremely useful book, Lisa Lampert-Weissig provides a comprehensive overview of and advocation for the 'postcolonial turn' in Medieval Studies. In tune with recent important studies, the 'central premise of this book [is] that the ideological groundwork for colonialism was being laid well before 1492' (p. 2). In a comprehensive overview of the state of the (sub) field ('The future of the past', pp. 1-30), Lampert-Weissig identifies what she views as five of the most important outcomes for medievalists thinking postcolonially: challenging periodization; rethinking borders and boundaries; borderlands; global vision; and decentring Christianity/rethinking race (pp. 4-1 1). The introductory chapter then goes on to raise briefly the implications of the temporal collocation of the historical development of the study of medieval literature and of colonialism itself (pp. 20-30).