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IMC 2018: Sessions

Session 1540: Ancestral Roots: Memory and Arboreal Imagery across Cultures, I - Kinship

Thursday 5 July 2018, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:Trames Arborescentes Project
Organisers:Pippa Salonius, School of Philosophical, Historical & International Studies, Monash University, Victoria
Naïs Virenque, Centre d'Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, Université François Rabelais, Tours
Moderator/Chair:Naïs Virenque, Centre d'Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, Université François Rabelais, Tours
Paper 1540-aThe Classical Ancestors of Medieval Genealogical Trees?: An Overview of Botanical Depictions of Kinship in Ancient Greece and Rome
(Language: English)
Alessandro Buccheri, Centro Antropologia del Mondo Antico, Università di Siena / Centre Anthropologie et Histoire des Mondes Antiques (ANHIMA - UMR 8210), Paris
Index terms: Genealogy and Prosopography, Language and Literature - Greek, Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance)
Paper 1540-bBirth and Vegetal Growth: Two Metaphors of the Mnemonic Experience of Reading The Stromata by Clement of Alexandria
(Language: English)
Antoine Paris, Université Paris-Sorbonne, Paris / Université de Montréal, Québec
Index terms: Genealogy and Prosopography, Language and Literature - Greek, Literacy and Orality, Religious Life
Paper 1540-cLearning from the Tree: How Medieval Europeans and Māori Remembered Their Ancestors
(Language: English)
Pippa Salonius, School of Philosophical, Historical & International Studies, Monash University, Victoria
Index terms: Art History - General, Genealogy and Prosopography, Language and Literature - Other, Mentalities
Abstract

This session considers arboreal metaphors in medieval records describing kinship across cultures. Our first paper examines a selection of Greek and Latin botanical metaphors of kinship and suggests that the medieval predilection for arboreal imagery as classification tools differed substantially from its classical use, where, conversely, it stressed the absence of clear-cut boundaries. The following paper discusses Clement of Alexandria's use of metaphors of birth and vegetal growth as both organisational and mnemonic tools in The Stromata. The session concludes with a paper that compares how Medieval Europeans and Māoris used arboreal structures to commit creation stories and past histories to public memory.