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IMC 2017: Sessions

Session 1322: The Reproduction of Medieval Identity, Ethnicity, and Nationhood, IV

Wednesday 5 July 2017, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Birmingham Research Institute for History & Cultures (BRIHC), University of Birmingham / The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), University of Oxford
Organiser:Ilya Afanasyev, Birmingham Research Institute for History & Cultures, University of Birmingham / The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, University of Oxford
Moderator/Chair:Walter Pohl, Institut für Geschichte, Universität Wien
Paper 1322-aAre Vikings Scandinavians?
(Language: English)
Clare Downham, Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Political Thought
Paper 1322-bHistoriography as a Means of Reproducing and Reconstructing Byzantine Romanness
(Language: English)
Ioannis Stouraitis, University of Edinburgh
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Historiography - Medieval
Paper 1322-cLanguage, Fatherland, Faith: A 19th-Century Retrojection on Medieval Georgia
(Language: English)
Nikoloz Aleksidze, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), University of Oxford
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Medievalism and Antiquarianism
Abstract

In this series of sessions organised by 'The long history of identity, ethnicity and nationhood' research network, sponsored by Birmingham Research Institute for History and Cultures (BRIHC) and The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), we will focus on the reproduction of collective identities in the Middle Ages. While a generic constructivist approach is widely shared in research on pre-modern identities, it often remains uncritical. On the one hand, it sometimes conceals latent essentialism (best represented by the formula 'identities are constructed, but having been constructed become real'), and, on the other hand, restricts our capacity to arrive at a systemic understanding of how exactly collective identities are asserted and reproduced over long periods of time. Hence, our main goal is to tackle the difficult question of long-term reproduction of the same projected identities, often alongside broadly similar constructs, without resorting to essentialist or objectifying explanations. This final session IV is devoted to the role of historiography in the construction and reproduction of collective identities and brings together papers on Northern Europe, East Rome, and Caucasus.