Editors' Introduction: Pandemic Experiences and Making the Medieval Relevant

This issue brings together articles and essays that discuss, from different vantage points, the relevance of teaching medieval literature at a time of increasing global challenges and uncertainties. Marcel Elias and Ardis Butterfield, John Lance Griffith, Vanessa Jaeger, and Stacie Vos focus on different teaching and learning contexts by offering concrete suggestions for the classroom. Our special cluster on “Pandemic Experiences” features nine essays that reflect on what it meant (and means) to be teaching and researching amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, with contributions by Jonathan Fruoco, Kristine Larsen, David Lavinsky, Katrin Rupp, Kara Crawford, Kathy Cawsey, Suzanne Edwards, as well as Sandy Feinstein and Bryan Wang. In our new rubric “Conversations”, we continue discussions from previous issues: in her essay on the Humanities Lab, Patricia Ingham picks up on Carolyn Dinshaw’s call for experimentation, and Emma Margaret Solberg responds to our issue 2.1 on “#MeToo, Medieval Literature, and Trauma-Informed Pedagogy.