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Thomas Pettitt
Thomas Pettitt is professor (adj.) of Medieval and Renaissance studies at the Institut for Kulturvidenskaber (Cultural Sciences) and senior research associate with the Centre for Medieval Literature, University of Southern Denmark. His research focuses on early English and European verbal and performance culture in the fields where literature, theatre and folklore overlap – typically seasonal customs, pageantry and charivari; folk song and ballads; wondertales and legends. Such popular forms are appreciated both as cultural achievements in their own right and in relation to conventional literary and cultural history. The latter has included applying folkloristic approaches to the drama of Shakespeare and Marlowe. Much of this material also qualifies as early forms of media, and results of its analysis are accordingly being re-examined in the light of media history, not least from the perspective of media ecology.