Medieval death trip

Abstract

This dissertation presents two related works, one creative non-fiction and the other fiction, that engage in representing and adapting medieval texts. The non-fiction work consists of annotated transcripts of twelve episodes of a podcast entitled Medieval Death Trip. These episodes provide commentary on selected medieval texts drawn primarily from monastic chronicles but including other genres as well, each of which is presented as a featured performative reading in the middle of the episode enhanced by audio production that adds music and sound effects. The purpose of this show is to help a non-expert audience appreciate and become engaged with these rather remote and sometimes inaccessible texts. The fiction is a linked collection of short narratives entitled The Libellus de Mutationis, whose narrator is a monk writing tales of changes and transformations he has heard of as a way of justifying the fictionalizations he has wrought in a work of hagiography that he has completed. The fiction imitates elements of medieval rhetoric and narrative tropes, and in its own way offers novel variations on the same kinds of authentic texts presented in the podcast episodes.