The Outlaw Observed: Robin Hood and the Culture of Surveillance

Robin Hood has haunted the English cultural imagination for over six centuries, evolving from a medieval yeoman outlaw to a romanticised nobleman and, ultimately, a fixture of film and television. The Outlaw Observed examines the intersection of medievalism and surveillance across this rich screen legacy, arguing that popular adaptations of the Robin Hood legend do far more than reimagine the medieval past, and that they actively engage with contemporary anxieties about watching, being watched, and the politics of power.Drawing on a century of film and television, from the earliest silent pictures of 1908 to contemporary series, this book traces how Robin Hood adaptations generate discourses of transtemporal medievalism, a coexistence of past and present in which the medieval outlaw becomes a prism through which modern surveillance cultures are refracted and interrogated. Situating itself within established traditions of Robin Hood literary studies and screen medievalism scholarship, the book offers a systematic and original framework for understanding how a medieval figure can serve as a distant mirror of the post-medieval present.This book will appeal to scholars and advanced students in medieval and early modern studies, film and television studies, and cultural studies, particularly those with interests in medievalism, surveillance studies, and screen culture. It will also be of value to researchers working at the intersection of popular culture and political theory, and to a more general interested audience.

About the Author

Sabina Rahman is a lecturer in American Studies at the United States Studies Centre at Sydney University and holds a PhD in English from Macquarie University. Her work uses the grounding theoretical constructs of medievalism to explore the intricate dynamics of racial relations and gender politics as depicted in television and cinema, using historical fiction as a mode of exploring contemporary anxieties, identities, conflicts, and tensions.