IMC 2015: Sessions
Session 1733: Visions of Community, III: Thinking Genealogically
Thursday 9 July 2015, 14.15-15.45
| Sponsor: | Sonderforschungsbereich 42 'Visions of Community', Universität Wien / Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien / Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship ‘Migratio gentium' |
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| Organiser: | Stefan Donecker, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien |
| Moderator/Chair: | Rutger Kramer, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien |
| Paper 1733-a | Classifying Peoples: The Use and Re-use of Classical and Christian Terminology in Late Antique and Early Medieval Catalogues of Peoples (Language: English) Index terms: Biblical Studies, Genealogy and Prosopography, Historiography - Medieval |
| Paper 1733-b | The Ancient Pedigrees of the Goths and Xianbei: A Trans-Cultural Study in Greco-Roman and Chinese Ethnographic Historiography (Language: English) Index terms: Genealogy and Prosopography, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Comparative, Language and Literature - Other |
| Paper 1733-c | Trees of Knowledge: Genealogy as a Paradigm of Early Modern Scholarly Thought (Language: English) Index terms: Genealogy and Prosopography, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Mentalities |
| Abstract | Genealogy - i. e., the comprehension of present phenomena and institutions through a consideration of lineage and descent - is commonly regarded as one of the most archaic forms of historical thinking. Its prevalence among pre-modern societies is often taken for granted and has only occasionally been reflected upon by researchers. The proposed session aims at a critical re-evaluation of the genealogical paradigm. Drawing upon case studies from European as well as Chinese historiography, the papers will examine the epistemological foundations of genealogical thought, the methods employed in genealogical inquiries as well as the different applications - from individual family trees to the collective genealogy of gentes and nationes. As such, the session will be thematically linked to Social Cohesion, IV: Methods in Reconstructing Social Cohesion - History, Archaeology, and Genetics, based on the assumption the pre-modern genealogies and modern genetics can be interpreted as related and interdependent discourses on descent. |