IMC 2021: Sessions
Session 306: Terminological Tensions: Reconsidering Key Categories of Late Antique and Early Medieval Research, II - Disciplined Bodies
Monday 5 July 2021, 16.30-18.00
| Sponsor: | Department of History, Syracuse University, New York / Medieval Studies Program, McIntire Department of Art, University of Virginia |
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| Organiser: | Albrecht Diem, Department of History, Syracuse University, New York |
| Moderator/Chair: | Eric M. Ramírez-Weaver, McIntire Department of Art, University of Virginia |
| Paper 306-a | Inhabitants, Citizens, Peoples: Defining Urban Group Identities, c. 800-1050 (Language: English) Index terms: Geography and Settlement Studies, Historiography - Medieval, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Social History |
| Paper 306-b | Chronicle of a Misfortune Retold: On the Problematic Nature of 'Slave Trade' as a Category of Historical Research (Language: English) Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin |
| Paper 306-c | The Dangers of Purity (Language: English) Index terms: Anthropology, Historiography - Modern Scholarship, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Sexuality |
| 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. |