Larissa “Kat” Tracy publishes new edited collection on treason

Dr. Larissa “Kat” Tracy, Professor of Medieval Literature in the Department of English and Modern Languages, recently published her eighth book, an edited collection titled Treason: Medieval and Early Modern Adultery, Betrayal, and Shame with academic press Brill.

Treason had very specific definitions in the Middle Ages: betrayal of the lord/king or country. But treason manifested in multiple ways throughout the medieval and early modern periods including rebellious lords, disloyal subjects, and unfaithful queens. Treason was adjudicated and punished differently in different periods and different communities; often the shame of treason lingered long after the immediate act. Arranged in three thematic sections, this volume investigates the nature of treason in medieval and early modern society in both practice and representation—its consequences, its lasting effects, its impression on societies and social standing. It includes articles dealing with treason, adultery, betrayal, or the shameful consequences of such betrayal in law, literature, art history, history, from across the span of the medieval period and into the early modern period. This collection includes seventeen interdisciplinary articles, including Tracy’s piece “The Shame Game, from Guinevere to Cersei: Adultery, Treason and Betrayal.”

Her other books include Torture and Brutality in Medieval Literature (D. S. Brewer, 2012), Women of the Gilte Legende (D. S. Brewer, 2003) and the edited collections Heads Will Roll: Decapitation in the Medieval and Early Modern Imagination, with Jeff Massey (Brill, 2012), Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages (D. S. Brewer, 2013), Wounds and Wound Repair in Medieval Culture, with Kelly DeVries (Brill, 2015), Flaying in the Pre-modern World (D. S. Brewer, 2017), and Medieval and Early Modern Murder (D. S. Brewer, 2018).

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