IMC 2013: Sessions
Session 312: The Pleasure and Pragmatics of Epistolary Exchange, II: Use of the Letter Form in Religious, Learned, and Political Interaction
Monday 1 July 2013, 16.30-18.00
| Sponsor: | Historisches Seminar, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster |
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| Organisers: | Diana Marie Jeske, School of Philosophical, Historical & International Studies, Monash University, Victoria Sita Steckel, Historisches Seminar, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster |
| Moderator/Chair: | Mia Münster-Swendsen, Section of History, Roskilde Universitet |
| Paper 312-a | Lords of the Word: Mendicant Leaders' Use of Letter Communication in the Secular-Mendicant Controversy (Language: English) Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Rhetoric |
| Paper 312-b | The Dynamics of Crisis and Change: Epistolary Communication among Byzantine Elites around the Mid-14th Century (Language: English) Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Language and Literature - Greek, Politics and Diplomacy, Rhetoric |
| Paper 312-c | Response (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Rhetoric |
| Abstract | Current research is recognizing medieval letter-writing as an elaborate, highly self-aware, and literary medium. But letters also brought extra dimensions to pragmatic interaction concerning religion, politics, and learning. Seen as fictional speech, letters remained poised between gesture and the spoken and written word, bringing the force of stylized writing and of social ritual to bear on political, religious, or scholarly debates. The session explores the dynamics of these pragmatic uses, discussing examples from the 13th-century Western church and the 14th-century Byzantine aristocracy. A response will reflect on possibilites for further diachronic and comparative research on letters. |