We Take What We Fancy: How Disneyland Pirates the Global Middle Ages and Renaissance—A Talk!

I am absolutely thrilled to have been invited to be the keynote speaker for a conference this Fall 2025! The conference is Afterlives: Reinvention, Reproduction, and Reception, hosted by Forest Lawn Museum and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at CSULB.

Treasure Room of Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disneyland, 2025. Photo: Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank

With so many great topics from my current research and work to discuss, it was difficult to select a topic. And yet, somehow, I always knew I'd land with Pirates of the Caribbean. Here's my working talk abstract, in case you'd like to know what I will be speaking about come November.

We Take What We Fancy: How Disneyland Pirates the Global Middle Ages and Renaissance

What do Theodor de Bry’s map of the Caribbean, the Lindau Gospels, a Moche ear ornament, and Titian’s Venus of Urbino have in common? All find new life in the dimly lit, glittering caverns of the Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland, where global medieval and early modern objects have been reimagined and recontextualized for 20th- and 21st-century edutainment. This talk explores how the attraction’s visual culture pirates the past to create an immersive fantasy of the Golden Age of Piracy.

I am, of course, already fussing with the talk because it's also an excuse to finish the initial draft of my book about the art history of New Orleans Square at Disneyland. That, and I am obsessed with pirates and their visual history. If you also want to learn more about pirates, you can read a few short pieces I've written here:

• Howard Pyle and pirates

• Female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read

• The pirate Redd at Disneyland

And if you want to stay up-to-date with what's happening with how Disneyland pirates the Global Middle Ages and Renaissance, come join my newsletter community!