Medieval Europe and Beyond

This research working group is intended as a venue for historians, social scientists, and philosophers interested in discussing recent developments in the study of medieval Europe. Comparisons between Latin Europe, Byzantium, and Islam, and between late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the early modern period are encouraged. The research group is not limited to medievalists but open to colleagues in other fields.

Monthly meetings include roundtable discussions of recent scholarship, readings of primary sources, methodological seminars, and presentations of work in progress. Working languages are Romanian and English.

2018/2019 academic year, 2nd semester: Identities

Identity is a multifaceted subject, intersecting with several other areas of academic study: ethnicity, community, social class, religion, and individualism cannot be understood without reference to the concept of identity. Although frequently expressed through material culture, identity retains an almost ineffable quality (to quote Aaron Gurevich on the individual in medieval society). Identity is what makes me who I am, and as such remains difficult to pin down from the often lacunary medieval evidence. This notwithstanding, medievalists have produced a substantial body of knowledge on questions of identity, on which we will draw in the course of five roundtable discussions this semester, ranging from ethnic identity to the social self.

Unless otherwise announced, meetings take place Mondays from 5 pm at ICUB Humanities.

Monday, 25 February 2019, 17h – National and ethnic identity in the Middle Ages

• Johnson and Smith in Concepts of National Identity in the Middle Ages (1995); Curta, Introduction and Conclusions from The Making of the Slavs (2001).

Monday, 18 March 2019, 17h – Ethnicity, community, and race

• Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (2018), chapter 1; Pohl et al. (eds., 2018), pp. 3-40, 241-53; Barzaman (2017), pp. 224-54.

Monday, 1 April 2019, 17h – The social self

• Bedos-Rezak, When Ego Was Imago (2010), chapter 6; Koziol, ‘Is Robert I in hell?’ (2006).

Monday, 6 May 2019, 17h – Hidden identities: Impostors, counterfeits, and dissimulators

• Davis, ‘Remaking impostors: from Martin Guerre to Sommersby’ (1997); Introduction and Conclusions from Hug, Impostures in Early Modern England (2010).