IMC 2005: Sessions
Session 910: A Digital Net of Medieval Animals?: A Round Table Discussion
Tuesday 12 July 2005, 19.30-20.30
| Sponsor: | Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest |
|---|---|
| Organiser: | Gerhard Jaritz, Institut für Realienkunde, Universität Salzburg, Krems / Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest |
| Moderator/Chair: | Gerhard Jaritz, Institut für Realienkunde, Universität Salzburg, Krems / Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest |
| Abstract | Animals are woven almost unnoticed into the complex web of human existence. Animals permeate every part of our lives, from mundane subsistence questions to our attitudes about the world around us. We prepare dishes from their meat. We use leather for shoes and wool for clothing. Animals reflect prestige, and hunting them can be a test of manhood. Animals and their attributes appear as symbols in religion and allegory, in the way humans tell their stories. In the medieval world, animals can appear in strange mixed forms, which were as real to people of those times as the chickens and cows they were surrounded by in daily life. The audience will be invited to join a discussion on the ways of accessing and analysing the various textual, visual and zoological traces of medieval animals in a digital framework. |