NEWS RELEASE

Contact: David West (west@nsula.edu )
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466

1/25/2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATCHITOCHES ­Dr. Kent G. Hare, assistant professor of history at Northwestern State University, has published two articles in professional journals.

An article by Hare, "Athelstan of England: Christian King and Hero," appeared in issue seven of The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe. "Christian Heroism and the West Saxon Achievement: The Old English Poetic Evidence" appeared in volume four of Medieval Forum, dated Dec. 2004. Both articles grew out of research Hare has pursued since his days as a graduate student studying medieval history at Louisiana State University.

"In a remote sense," Hare says, "I am exploring the origins of the crusading movement, and therefore the curious relationship between warfare and religion, the two subjects that were of most importance to the warrior nobility of the Middle Ages. Crusading origins have always been a popular subject in medieval studies. Little could I know when I chose this topic a decade ago just how relevant the idea of religious warfare would become with 9/11 and the new attention being given to Islamic terrorism."

Hare approaches the topic of crusading origins from a new perspective, focusing on developments in England long before the First Crusade was launched at the end of the eleventh century. Both of the just-published articles focus on the 10th century, the period in which notions of Christian service and sacrifice crystallized in a desperate defense of Christian Anglo-Saxon civilization against pagan Viking invaders. Similar ideas, a century and more later, would motivate the first crusaders in their efforts to retake the Holy Land from the Muslims.

"Faith has always been a powerful motivating force," said Hare. "Throughout history, religion has always provided one of the essential foundations for societies and states, and conflict against other societies and states has often been framed in religious terms when religion was not the outright cause for such conflict. In the modern context, we need look only at the clarity of purpose displayed by Islamic terrorists who conceive theirs as a conflict against a western society that they identify as Christian.

"To draw a parallel, the 10th-century Anglo-Saxons knew against whom they were fighting, and why; Osama bin Laden knows against whom he is fighting, and why; in the war against terror, do we know against whom we are fighting, and why?"

Both articles appear in academic journals that are published exclusively on-line. Hare said this outlet for academic publication is an important new development that offers several advantages over traditional print journals while maintaining the same quality of scholarship.

The only difference between traditional print journals and on-line journals is in how the finished product is delivered to its audience, according to Hare. That difference means that the audience may be much larger because on-line journals are usually free and accessible to anyone with Internet access while print journals must at least recoup the cost of printing, which can be quite steep on a per copy basis because of small print runs. Also, the time between submission and publication of an article may be considerably shorter.

"Athelstan of England: Christian King and Hero" may be accessed at http://www.mun.ca/mst/heroicage/issues/7/hare.html. "Christian Heroism and the West Saxon Achievement: The Old English Poetic Evidence" appears at http://www.sfsu.edu/~medieval/Volume4/Hare.html.

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