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IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 330: Borders and Boundaries, Real and Imagined, in Late Medieval Italy

Monday 6 July 2020, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Leeds Centre for Dante Studies / Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Organiser:Elisabeth Trischler, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Moderator/Chair:Samuel Bradley, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Paper 330-aDante's Hope between Peraldo and St Bonaventura
(Language: English)
Bruna Lorenzin, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici Università degli Studi di Torino
Index terms: Language and Literature - Italian, Monasticism, Religious Life, Theology
Paper 330-bThe Breaking of Boundaries and Bonds in Dante's Ante-Purgatory
(Language: English)
Caroline Dormor, Faculty of Medieval & Modern Languages University of Oxford
Index terms: Language and Literature - Italian, Social History
Paper 330-cLiteral and Metaphorical Boundaries in Dante Alighieri's Life and Commedia
(Language: English)
Elisabeth Trischler, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Index terms: Architecture - General, Geography and Settlement Studies, Language and Literature - Italian
Abstract

Many Italian cities experienced phases of urban expansion in the late medieval period, altering not only the shape and layout of the city but also the experience of its inhabitants and their identity within it. These expansions created various dichotomies of urban versus rural space, citizen versus outsider, profane versus sacred, etc. This session seeks to understand how real or imagined borders altered perceptions of either individual or communal identity and call into question the rigidity and usefulness of these dichotomies. What defines a citizen from an outsider? When and how does a space transform from the profane to the sacred? Can a space be both profane and sacred?