IMC 2011: Sessions
Session 1107: Reading Medieval Minds, II: Techniques of the Self
Wednesday 13 July 2011, 11.15-12.45
| Sponsor: | Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages (CeSMA), University of Birmingham / Institut für Mittelalterfoschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien |
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| Organiser: | Christina Pössel, School of History & Cultures, University of Birmingham |
| Moderator/Chair: | Walter Pohl, Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Universität Wien |
| Respondent: | John H. Arnold, Department of History, Classics & Archaeology, Birkbeck, University of London |
| Paper 1107-a | Augustine and the Dark Side of the Self (Language: English) Index terms: Mentalities, Religious Life |
| Paper 1107-b | The Performance of Individuality in the Histories of Gregory of Tours (Language: English) Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Mentalities |
| Paper 1107-c | Anger and Invective in Paschasius Radbertus' Epitaphium Arsenii (Language: English) Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Historiography - Medieval |
| Abstract | The linguistic turn and resulting increase in historians' awareness of the constructedness of, and discursive strategies in, medieval texts, made medievalists wary of making any claims to be able to study medieval authors' inner lives. However, as modern readers we constantly make assumptions about authorial motivations, concerns, sometimes even moods, in our quest for meaning. In doing so, we invoke all manner of concepts that need to be examined and historicized, for examples ideas about what might be 'logical', raising the question of a possible different rationality of medieval minds. These two sessions are intended to explore a variety of different approaches to deal with the problems of modern minds trying to understand medieval minds. |