Medievalism in the Age of COVID-19: A Collegial Plenitude Compiled and edited by Richard Utz When reposting or quoting this compilation, we request you attribute its first place and time of publication: “Medievalism in the Age of COVID-19: A Collegial Plenitude, ” comp. & ed. Richard Utz, Medievally Speaking, May 4, 2020: https://medievallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2020/05/medievalism-in-age-of-covid-19.html. Introduction About four decades ago, when Leslie J. Workman organized the first sessions on the subject of Medievalism at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, few people listened. As a paradigm, Medievalism Studies questioned the prevalent scholarly notion of an unbridgeable chasm between ourselves and the medieval artifacts and subjects we study. Only a scientific and distanced approach to this almost incomprehensibly different era, so scholars of Medieval Studies professed, would yield reliable results. Medievalism was branded as something amateurs, dilettantes, and enthusiasts do. As I am writing the intro to this collection of news, reflections, reports, shout outs, and vignettes, it is as clear as is the summer sun that the paradigm of Medievalism has helped transform the way we study and engage with the medieval past. By focusing on the humanity of medieval people and their emotions and motivations, and by understanding and embracing our own (sublimated) desire for a deep engagement with the medieval past, we have enriched and humanized our own present as well as the past we investigate, re-present, and reenact. Journals, book series, essay collections, blogs, radio programs, videos, podcasts, and annual conferences attest to an almost omnipresent multimodal rendezvous with the past that investigates and acknowledges the multiple mirrors through time that influence our contemporary scholarly and creative reinventions of the Middle Ages. Another essential insight medievalism studies has revealed is how scholars, artists, practitioners, and fans all collaborate, albeit often in their own groups and in diverse ways, at increasing what we know about the Middle Ages and its continuities in the present. Appropriately, then, the authors of the short pieces assembled below include not only those who work at (or alongside) educational and research institutions: graduate students, retired faculty, full-time tenure track faculty, contingent faculty, independent scholars, administrators; but also those in non-academic or academy-adjacent professions: publishers, writers, a medieval coach, a composer, an industry analyst, and a jouster and professional fencing master. The contributors are based around the world, including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Hungary, Iceland, Japan, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK, and the USA; and their areas of interest, from the medieval through the contemporary, include Art, Comparative Literature, English, Church History, Cultural Studies, History, Latin, Linguistics, Literature, Media, Music, Political Science, and Philosophy. Because such is the collegial plenitude of Medievalism. Despite this plenitude, this compilation of more than 40 voices is not meant to be a formal and comprehensive survey of the current state of medievalism studies. However, in the time of COVID- 19, when we cannot meet in person during our annual pilgrimages to Kalamazoo or Leeds, where we usually refresh our batteries and learn about our projects, I thought it would be a good idea to share publicly what’s been happening in our field of engagement. I contacted colleagues either because I knew they were working on projects or had presented papers and plenaries at our past