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IMC 2012: Sessions

Session 629: Ways through the Minefield: Research on Medieval Ethnicity between Constructivism and Essentialism

Tuesday 10 July 2012, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Promotionsverbund 'Osten und Westen, 400-600', Eberhard Karls Universität, Tübingen
Organisers:Timo Kirschberger, Seminar für Mittlere und Neuere Geschichte, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Christian Stadermann, Seminar für Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen
Moderator/Chair:Alheydis Plassmann, Abteilung für Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Institut für Geschichtswissenschaft, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
Paper 629-aWriting Frankish Past: History and Law under Merovingian Rule
(Language: English)
Magali Coumert, Département d'histoire, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Law, Mentalities
Paper 629-bThe Image of Goths in the Chronicle of the So-Called Fredegar
(Language: English)
Christian Stadermann, Seminar für Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin, Mentalities
Paper 629-cEthnogenesis in the Latin East: Layers of Identity
(Language: English)
Timo Kirschberger, Seminar für Mittlere und Neuere Geschichte, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Index terms: Crusades, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin, Mentalities
Abstract

The discourse on ethnic identity is one that has produced heated debates far beyond the groves of academia and has therefore been likened to a minefield by sociologist Anthony D. Smith. Approaches to the topic vary widely between the two extremes of essentialism and constructivism. In this session the speakers will present their own ways of dealing with the phenomenon of ethnic identity in the Middle Ages and use their work on the Merovingians, the Goths and the Crusader States as examples.