IMC 2023: Sessions

Session 606: Rhetorics of Change: Literary Agency in the Tumultuous 15th Century

Tuesday 4 July 2023, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:	Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Project V919
Organisers:	Nathanael Aschenbrenner, Department of History, University of California, San Diego Krystina Kubina, Institut für Mittelalterforschung Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Wien
Moderator/Chairs:	Nathanael Aschenbrenner, Department of History, University of California, San Diego Krystina Kubina, Institut für Mittelalterforschung Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Wien
Paper 606-a	A Poet Emperor: The Case of Manuel II Palaiologos, 1350-1425 (Language: English) Siren Çelik, History Department, Marmara University, Istanbul Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Language and Literature - Greek, Political Thought, Rhetoric
Paper 606-b	Constantinople Conquered: An Italian Narrative of Peace, Opportunity, and Renewal (Language: English) Simon Smets, Department of Greek & Latin University College London / Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies Innsbruck Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Politics and Diplomacy
Abstract	The 15th century was a time of radical political and cultural subversions, emblematically represented by the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. This epochal event marked the end of the Byzantine Empire, a culmination of Ottoman and Islamic endeavors to acquire the symbolically charged city, and a profound change of diplomatic relationships for the Latin West and the eastern Mediterranean. This session examines the way these upheavals were reflected in and fostered by literary composition in various forms and languages: verse and prose, orations, letters, and epigrams, in Greek, Ottoman, and Latin. By taking a transcultural perspective, this session aims to elucidate how literature functioned as a driving cultural force in this dynamic age.