IMC 2014: Sessions

Session 1618: Visions of Community, V: The Meanings of Ethnicity in Early Medieval Europe and South Arabia - A Comparative Perspective

Thursday 10 July 2014, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:	Sonderforschungsbereich 42 'Visions of Community: Comparative Approaches to Ethnicity, Region & Empire in Christianity, Islam & Buddhism, 400-1600', Universität Wien / Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
Organiser:	Rutger Kramer, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
Moderator/Chair:	Walter Pohl, Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Universität Wien
Paper 1618-a	Ancient Names for New Peoples: Classical and Biblical Ethnonyms in Late Antique and Early Medieval Europe (Language: English) Salvatore Liccardo, Institut für Geschichte, Universität Wien Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin, Mentalities, Political Thought
Paper 1618-b	Ethnonyms and Ethnicity in Medieval South Arabia from a Historical Anthropological Perspective (Language: English) Odile Kommer, Institut für Sozialanthropologie, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien Index terms: Anthropology, Historiography - Medieval, Mentalities, Political Thought
Paper 1618-c	God's Peoples?: Ethnic Terminology and Religious Discourse (Language: English) Gerda Heydemann, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien / Institut für Geschichte, Universität Wien Index terms: Biblical Studies, Mentalities, Political Thought
Abstract	The meaning of ethnicity and the role of ethnic discourse in early medieval Europe has been the subject of much debate in recent years. This session offers new insights into this debate by taking a comparative approach: it puts the ethnographical tradition in Christian Europe side by side with that of Islamic South Arabia and combines historical and social anthropological perspectives. The papers will address the use of ethnonyms and the strategies of ethnic labelling (Liccardo and Kommer) and the meaning and function of generic terminology for ethnic communities (Heydemann). They will discuss the importance of classical and scriptural traditions (Liccardo, Heydemann) and raise the question of whether religion and ethnicity were entangled in different ways in Christian and Islamic contexts. By assessing the similarities and differences between ways of talking about ethnic groups, the session will enhance our understanding of the concept of ethnicity, both medieval and modern.