IMC 2026: Sessions

The rise of the "Global Middle Ages" marks a profound decentering transformation in medieval studies, shifting scholarly attention toward Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This paradigm seeks to uncover a premodern world shaped by cross-cultural exchanges. Within this framework, the land and maritime Silk Roads occupied a pivotal role as central channels facilitating the transnational flow of materials and knowledge across Eurasia. This series of panels aims to systematically present cutting-edge contributions from Chinese scholarship on Silk Roads studies. The discussions encompass a wide range of themes, spanning from macro-level overviews of domestic scholarly traditions to specific micro-case studies, such as: the complex collaboration between European merchants and Franciscan missionaries in Mongol China, founded on "profit and salvation," exploring how material interest and spiritual mission jointly drove East-West interaction; the underlying fears and moral narratives influencing knowledge production unveiled in the portrayal of the Mongols by the European chronicler Matthew Paris; the Liao Dynasty's mobile court system (nabo) within the framework of the "Mobile Polity," ; Collectively, these presentations depict a dynamic, pre-modern global picture unified under the Mongol Empire.