Skip to main content

IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 116: Terminological Tensions: Reconsidering Key Categories of Late Antique and Early Medieval Research, I

Monday 6 July 2020, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Department of History, Syracuse University, New York / Medieval Studies Program, McIntire Department of Art, University of Virginia
Organiser:Albrecht Diem, Department of History, Syracuse University, New York
Moderator/Chair:Eric M. Ramírez-Weaver, McIntire Department of Art, University of Virginia
Paper 116-aCorrectio and Its Different Modes: Theological, Moral, Scientific, and Economic
(Language: English)
Giles E. M. Gasper, Department of History, Durham University
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Learning (The Classical Inheritance)
Paper 116-bLooking Like Louis: Deconstructing Carolingian Classicism
(Language: English)
Eric M. Ramírez-Weaver, McIntire Department of Art, University of Virginia
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Learning (The Classical Inheritance)
Paper 116-cNaturae mirabor opus, 'Ecology without Nature', and the Tensions Therein
(Language: English)
Danielle Joyner, Department of Art & Art History Lawrence University Wisconsin
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Learning (The Classical Inheritance)
Abstract

The interdisciplinary nature of medieval studies has opened novel avenues for inquiry and complicated traditional narratives, as scholars find themselves encountering and pressuring key terms across disciplinary divides. Many of them have no direct relation to the language of our sources. As placeholders with complex histories themselves they offer useful generalizations and abstractions, but carry the danger of obfuscating diversity or nuance, transporting ideology, directing questions toward hackneyed answers, and inadvertently privileging certain research traditions over others. The papers shed light on the genesis and history several key categories of research, reflect on their hermeneutic power and experiment with alternatives.