Uses of Wodan : the development of his cult and of medieval literary responses to it
Scholars working on Germanic pre-christian religion have generally considered Wodan to have been a deity of considerable importance to most if not all Germanic 
tribes. This understanding is, however, based on a failure to approach the available evidence for Wodan within appropriate contemporary contexts. This thesis recontextualises the evidence, therefore, building a model of the general nature of Germanic heathenisms in the Migration Age, within which the cult of Wodan can be located. Set against this model, and with due consideration given to its social, political and religious contexts, the earliest evidence for Wodan can be seen as the beginning of a christian reimagination of this deity. A plausible model of Wodan's cult is established, which sees this cult as being geographically limited, and originating probably within the first half millenium of the Common Era; the cult of Odinn would appear, moreover, to be substantially separate in development from that of Wodan. Furthermore, a complex set of eighth-century scholarly re-uses of Wodan are shown to have shaped subsequent understandings of the deity, both in the medieval period and up to the present day. 
 
Having considered how the traditions of eighth-century scholarship have misled modern scholarship, the thesis then examines the further development of these traditions 
in Anglo-Saxon England. In this context, Wodan assumes still more various guises, and is conflated with Odinn, thus helping to cement modern scholarship's belief in the 
original unity of these two figures. This process is strengthened, moreover, by the strong influence which Anglo-Saxon England exerted on Scandinavia both around the time of 
the conversion of Scandinavia and at the period when much of the extant Scandinavian mythography was written down. 
 
This Scandinavian mythography is examined briefly in the final chapter, which points out some important areas of misreading of pre-christian mythology in thirteenthcentury 
Scandinavian mythography, as well as arguing for substantial extra-Scandinavian influences on such mythography. This leads, finally, to a consideration of how Odinn appears in what little certainly pre-christian evidence exists for him.
The first variant version : a critical edition
A critical edition based on the eight known First Variant manuscripts, the prime source of Wace's Roman de Brut. Geoffrey's 'history' of the British from their first colonisation of the island under Brutus to the late 7th century AD was one of the most influential works of the 12th century, and introduced to a wider audience central figures in English literature, including King Arthur and King Lear. 'Wright's long introduction is a model of meticulousness and thoroughness...a fine study and edition...In a previous review I called Wright's edition of the vulgate text "an auspicious beginning" to a series that promised to become the standard scholarly treatment of Geoffrey's Historia...That promise is being kept.' Lister M. Matheson, SPECULUM April 1991 A critical edition based on the eight known First Variant manuscripts, the prime source of Wace's Roman de Brut. Geoffrey's 'history' of the British from thier first colonisation of the island under Brutus to the late 7th century AD was one of the most influential works of the 12th century, and introduced to a wider audience central figures in English literature, including King Arthur and King Lear.
French film theory and criticism : a history/anthology, 1907-1939
These two volumes examine a significant but previously neglected moment in French cultural history: the emergence of French film theory and criticism before the essays of Andr Bazin. Richard Abel has devised an organizational scheme of six nearly symmetrical periods that serve to "bite into" the discursive flow of early French writing on the cinema. Each of the periods is discussed in a separate and extensive historical introduction, with convincing explications of the various concepts current at the time. In each instance, Abel goes on to provide a complementary anthology of selected texts in translation. Amounting to a portable archive, these anthologies make available a rich selection of nearly one hundred and fifty important texts, most of them never before published in English.