"Paulson highlights a paradox of scholarship on medieval concepts of the self: The concept of an 'interior' self that is to some extent hidden from an 'external' world is uniquely modern, and hence alien to the medieval period; nevertheless, studies of the medieval idea of the self still privilege this modern binary in the language they use. What is needed, Paulson argues, is a new way of speaking about the medieval self that does not privilege anachronistic terms and concepts. To provide this, Paulson turns to the medieval morality plays--performances which depict selves being created through performative acts--to construct a more appropriate form of discourse"--