Paul B. Sturtevant
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| Paul B. Sturtevant | |
|---|---|
| Born | Paul Bernard Sturtevant 4 September 1981 Springfield (VA), United States |
| 💼 Occupation | |
| 📆 Years active | 2007–present |
Paul B. Sturtevant (born 4 September 1981) is an American historian, an author, and a public medievalist with a Ph.D. degree from the University of Leeds (2010), which he achieved through his main research subject, the Middle Ages.[1] He is also editor-in-chief and founder of the online magazine The Public Medievalist offering free and accessible articles of medieval history to people with an interest in the subject. In addition to the magazine, he has added a podcast with the same name.[2] Sturtevant has been a vivid political scientist writer for the national newspaper The Washington Post several times.[3][4][5] His main focus in recent years, has been American politicians’ use of the word “medieval” to promote their politics whether it is Republicans or Democrats. Former president Donald Trump has made the pro-term “medieval wall”, while Democratic politicians like Charles E. Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries has slammed Trump’s idea as “medieval” (negative notion). According to Sturtevant both opinions are matters of misconstruing history and of a political communication crisis, because of their wrong use of the Middle Ages.[6]
Among his other work, Sturtevant has looked into the crisis of humanities sciences, made a research of the development of the Affordable Care Act, and studied the history of American barbecue[7], which he has enlightened readers of the British national newspaper The Telegraph about.[8] Furthermore he has appeared on several TV documentaries (for instance for the BBC) and on podcasts.[9]
Work and research[edit]
Paul B. Sturtevant is a scientist with an expertise of History, Informal learning, Teaching and Training, Qualitative Research, and Visitor Studies. As an expert of these areas, he joined the Smithsonian Organization and Audience Research working as a contractor from 2013 and four years ahead. In 2017 he was hired full-time by the organization.[10]
Sturtevant got his first book, The Middle Ages in Popular Imagination: Memory, Film and Medievalism published in 2018.[11][12] In his own words the aim of the book was to learn “how the public understanding of the Middle Ages is shaped by big-budget films”, avoiding quantitative data, and instead using a qualitative approach with smaller focus groups of British non-history-educated adults. Most of the participants made a distinction between the term “Middle Ages”, which they considered to be a period of real history, and the term “medieval” which they connected to “a setting for fantasy and legend”.
Sturtevant’s thesis, however, was that anything labelled “medieval” should make the focus groups get a better understanding of the Middle Ages. The study cases were the movies Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Beowulf (2007), and the third Lord of the Rings movie The Return of the King (2003). Sturtevant discovered that “little learning seems to occur from one film in isolation; but far more learning was observed when examining several films in conversation with each other.” He found out that the participants changed their perception on some aspects of the Middle Ages, e.g. that the world was more based on sea travels than they originally thought. He also noticed the subjects disdain for medieval religion and for the illiterate “blind faith” of the ancient people. Sturtevant’s conclusion: “if we separate ourselves from our historical forebears by this metric, seeing them as 'other' or even 'lesser' for their religious beliefs, there is little stopping us from doing the same to those of other religions.”[13]
His second book, The Devil’s Historians: How Modern Extremists Abuse the Medieval Past (2020) co-written with Amy S. Kaufman, examines the most common myths about the Middle Ages and show how extremists use those myths as a vehicle to justify their hatred for other groups, whether that is through promoting colonialism, empire, slavery, hypernationalism, or simply creating and reusing extreme fantasies.[14]
At the present time Sturtevant is working on a new book with the working title The Tabletop Historian's Guide to the Middle Ages. The book is a guide to the real world of the Middle Ages and primarily for roleplayers and Dungeons & Dragons use.[15]
References[edit]
- ↑ Paul Sturtevant.com – about Paul
- ↑ Publicmedievalist.com - Paul B. Sturtevant's podcast
- ↑ The Washington Post - News - Made by history/wp/2018/05/11/"What if Thanos' plan in avengers infinity war actually happened? It already did sort of"
- ↑ The Washington Post - News - Made by history/wp/2018/08/14/Science fictions - Antisemitism problem
- ↑ The Washington Post - Education/2019/09/19/"It's all white people allegations. White supremacy are tearing apart prestigious medieval studies group"
- ↑ The Washington Post - Outlook/2019/01/22/"What politicians mean when they call border wall medieval"
- ↑ ..Sturtevant.com – about Paul
- ↑ The Telegraph (UK), "The secrets of authentic American barbecue", 18 July 2015
- ↑ Paul Sturtevant.com - TV, Video, and Podcast Appearances
- ↑ Smithsonian Organization and Audience Research – staff: Paul B. Sturtevant
- ↑ Academicbooks.dk – Middle Ages popular imagination
- ↑ ..Sturtevant.com – about Paul
- ↑ The Philadelphia Inquirer, Entertainment – “Paul B. Sturtevant’s Middle Ages: learning a little history from popular culture“
- ↑ Scholar.google.com – “The Devil's Historians: How Modern Extremists Abuse the Medieval Past”
- ↑ Paul Sturtevant.com – tabletop historian
Literature[edit]
- Sturtevant, Paul B. (2018). The Middle Ages in Popular Imagination: Memory, Film and Medievalism. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-178-6723-574. Search this book on
- Sturtevant, Paul B.; Kaufman, Amy S. (2020). The Devil’s Historians: How Modern Extremists Abuse the Medieval Past. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-148-7587-840. Search this book on
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