IMC 2020: Sessions
Session 810: (Un)Bound Bodies: Consolidating and Fragmenting Borders, IV
Tuesday 7 July 2020, 16.30-18.00
| Organiser: | Lauren Rozenberg, Department of History of Art, University College London |
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| Moderator/Chair: | Agata Zielinska, Department of History, University College London |
| Paper 810-a | Flesh Side: Sharing Bodies with New Haven, Beinecke Library, MS 84 (Language: English) Index terms: Art History - General, Manuscripts and Palaeography |
| Paper 810-b | 'Fair […] as any wezele': A Study of the Unnatural Body in Medieval Literature (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Social History |
| Paper 810-c | Living the Life of Man, Not the Mule: Reason and Self-Knowledge in Cistercian Texts on the Soul (Language: English) Index terms: Monasticism, Social History |
| Abstract | The distinction between man and animal, the human and non-human, was a fluid one in the Middle Ages. Within the sphere of morality - a distinctly human trait - the shadow of animality was always lurking the background. As the writings of 12th century Cistercians and the poetry of Chaucer attest, the sinful behaviour of man was labelled in reference to the animal, being characterised by unbridled, rather than restrained, desire. And the very animal-skin manuscripts on which this moral thought was written reveals that the power of animals, even after death, to be in dialogue with, and shape the interpretation of, a text. |