User:Utziputz/Leslie J. Workman

Leslie J. Workman (* 5. March 1927 in Hanwell, London, England; † 1. April 2001 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA) was an independent scholar, cultural critic, and founder of the academic field of medievalism.

Biography
Workman was educated at the Russell School in London and later received a B.A. in History at Kings College. After serving in the British Army in Egypt, Palestine, and the Sudan from 1945 through 1948, he emigrated to the U.S. and studied History at Columbia University and Ohio State University. He taught at Queens College (CUNY), Muhlenberg College (Allentown, PA), and the Western College for Women (Oxford, OH). In 1983, he married Kathleen Verduin, a Professor of American Literature at Hope College, Michigan.

Works
Workman's original contribution to the academy was his creation of a worldwide network of scholars who focused on the reception of medieval culture in postmedieval times. Although an independent scholar without terminal degree and academic employment, Workman managed to convince many colleagues of the value of the paradigm of medievalism. In 1971, Workman organized the first conference sections on medievalism at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan), founded 1979 the leading journal in the field, Studies in Medievalism, which he edited until 1999, and established the annual International General Conference on Medievalism (including conference proceedings, The Year's Work in Medievalism). Due to his extraordinary achievements he was presented with a Festschrift in 1998: Medievalism in the Modern World: Essays in Honour of Leslie J. Workman.

Publications

 * "Medievalism." In: The Arthurian Encyclopedia, ed. Norris J. Lacy. New York: Garland, 1985. Pp. 387-91.
 * "Medievalism and Romanticism." In: Poetica. 39-40 (1994), 1-34.
 * Studies in Medievalism, 1979-1999. (Ed.)