IMC 2018: Sessions

Session 1210: Rethinking Agency, II: Reading Jews

Wednesday 4 July 2018, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:	Medieval Prosopography
Organisers:	Charlotte Pickard, Centre for Continuing & Professional Education, Cardiff University Rebecca Searby, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
Moderator/Chair:	Lindy Grant, Department of History, University of Reading
Paper 1210-a	The Agency of the 13th-Century Anglo-Jewess (Language: English) Dean A. Irwin, School of Humanities, Canterbury Christ Church University Index terms: Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Women's Studies
Paper 1210-b	The Tale of Two Tolranas: Jewish Women's Agency and Conversion in Late Medieval Girona (Language: English) Alexandra Guerson, Department of History, University of Toronto, New College Dana Wessell Lightfoot, Department of History, University of Northern British Columbia Index terms: Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Women's Studies
Paper 1210-c	The Problems and Possibilities of Reading Jewish Agency in English Common Law (Language: English) Rebecca Searby, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York Index terms: Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Law
Abstract	Detecting 'agency' in the medieval world, in recent years, has shaped the research of historians searching for the lesser voices of the past. It is a term often attributed to unusual 'action' or 'will' beyond the scope of societal expectation. Given its vast application, there is a pressing need to consider how we detect, define, and interpret agency across medieval record collections. Are we reading moments of individual will or is this a more complicated process that requires renewed appreciation? This second session explores how Jews, as the religious minority, navigated financial, legal, and socio-political relationships in medieval England and Catalonia.