IMC 2016: Sessions
Session 1037: Visions of Community, I: What's in a Name? - Ethnonyms and Identity in Early Medieval Eurasia
Wednesday 6 July 2016, 09.00-10.30
Sponsor: | Sonderforschungsbereich 42 'Visions of Community', Universität Wien / DOC-Team ‘Ethnonyme im Vergleich’ / Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien |
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Organisers: | Odile Kommer, Institut für Sozialanthropologie, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien Salvatore Liccardo, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien |
Moderator/Chair: | Helmut Reimitz, Department of History, Princeton University |
Paper 1037-a | Setting Boundaries: 'Barbaric' Ethnonyms between Geography and Imperial Ideology (Language: English) Index terms: Geography and Settlement Studies, Historiography - Medieval, Mentalities, Rhetoric |
Paper 1037-b | Label or Libel?: The Ethnonym 'Saxo' in the Latin Textual Record, 300-900 (Language: English) Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin |
Paper 1037-c | Turks as Eurasian Nomads in Medieval Islamic Sources (Language: English) Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Islamic and Arabic Studies |
Abstract | Ethnonym - i.e. names applied to ethnic groups - contain a plethora of meanings that go far beyond the seeming neutral appellation of 'Franks', 'Goths', or even 'Romans'. This means that ethnonyms are not only interesting terms in their own right, since they suggest a wide variety of ways to represent groups in relation to their land or language, but they also serve as constructing devices in cultural discourse. Drawing upon case studies from the Late Roman period until the 10th century and from both Latin and Arabic perspectives the speakers will address ethnonyms as conceptual tools, which have been used to adapt, shape or enforce particular ideas of communities and specific political agendas. It will shed new light on the way ethnonyms function as cognitive strategies in order to make sense of both the 'Self' and the 'Other'. Following a debate on how ethnonyms can function, on a wider level, as elements of Late Roman and Early Medieval 'sense of place' and imperial rhetoric, the session will later concentrate on literary and political implications of two specific ethnonyms: 'Saxons' and 'Turks'. |