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IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 316: Terminological Tensions: Reconsidering Key Categories of Late Antique and Early Medieval Research, III - Parsing Minds

Monday 6 July 2020, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Department of History, Syracuse University, New York / Medieval Studies Program, McIntire Department of Art, University of Virginia
Organiser:Eric M. Ramírez-Weaver, McIntire Department of Art, University of Virginia
Moderator/Chair:Albrecht Diem, Department of History, Syracuse University, New York
Respondent:Gordon Blennemann, Département d’histoire, Université de Montréal
Paper 316-aThe Modesty of the Dog-Man: Varieties of Conscience in Carolingian Europe
(Language: English)
Courtney Booker, Department of History, University of British Columbia
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Learning (The Classical Inheritance)
Paper 316-bThe Soul as a Legal Person
(Language: English)
Maria de Lurdes Rosa, Instituto de Estudos Medievais Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Index terms: Archives and Sources, Ecclesiastical History, Historiography - Medieval
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.