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IMC 2022: Sessions

Session 515: Conflict and Integration: Crossing Medieval Borders, I - Permeable Borders

Tuesday 5 July 2022, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:Queen's University Belfast
Organisers:Karen Pinto, Department of History, Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania
Elisa Ramazzina, School of Arts, English & Languages, Queen's University Belfast
Moderator/Chairs:Karen Pinto, Department of History, Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania
Elisa Ramazzina, School of Arts, English & Languages, Queen's University Belfast
Paper 515-aMedieval Cyprus: Art on the Border
(Language: English)
Justine M. Andrews, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of New Mexico
Index terms: Architecture - Religious, Art History - General, Byzantine Studies
Paper 515-bGhazā Fulān al-ṣāʾifa: Concubine-Born Sons (Hajīns) and the Legitimising Features of the Islamic-Byzantine Frontier in the Marwānid Period, 684-750
(Language: English)
Leone Pecorini Goodall, History, Classics & Archaeology / Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies, University of Edinburgh / Anatolian & East Mediterranean Studies, University of St Andrews
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Historiography - Medieval, Islamic and Arabic Studies
Paper 515-cPolitical Ritual and Collective Identity When Campaigning Abroad: 12th-Century Italian Communities
(Language: English)
Daniel Morgan, Department of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Index terms: Maritime and Naval Studies, Military History, Political Thought, Social History
Abstract

This first session explores the ambivalent function of borders, as they trigger both conflict and integration and their nature is double, being fixed but also permeable and flexible at the same time. Paper -a considers the Lusignan Kingdom of Cyprus as a borderland entailing different ethnic groups, different religions and different 'power centres', and analyses it through its visual culture, especially the architecture. Paper -b demonstrates how the Islamic-Byzantine frontier served to generate independent power bases and as a legitimising space for concubine-born sons (hajīns). Paper -c examines the politico-cultural strategies employed by Genoese, Pisan, and Venetian fleets to maintain their cohesiveness and sustain ongoing collective action when fighting beyond the borders of their home cities.