Subtheme:
Resistance and Refuge in the Medieval Mediterranean
Organizers: Ian Storey (Notre Dame), Francisco J. Cintrón Mattei (Notre Dame),
and Justin Michael Smith (Notre Dame)
The interconnectedness of the medieval Mediterranean fostered constant interaction between peoples from a variety of regions, states, socio-economic statuses, cultures, and religions. Emperors, intellectuals, traders, and mercenaries alike were drawn in by the wealth of trade, ideas, and inventions swirling throughout the sea and moving about its hinterlands. Often, their exchanges were helpful and happy meetings between one another. In other cases, their encounters–direct or indirect, violent or peaceful–resulted in resistance to one another, or a need to search for refuge away from one another.
This sub-theme calls for papers that consider the various forms of resistance and refuge evident across the medieval Middle Sea, broadly-construed. Topics could touch upon a wide assortment of questions across an extensive timeframe across the Middle Ages (c. 500-1500).
Some queries could be more concrete and focused on specific instances of reactionary violence, radical peace, intellectual escape, or artistic response to times of crisis in the medieval Mediterranean: Did a ruler's sponsorship of translations from a religious, political or cultural 'other' reveal his or her own interest in learning, or was it a strategic response to political and intellectual threats, and how do we draw that line? How did local notables on the borders of their state navigate times of civil war by cooperating with outsiders? How did acquiescence to foreign authority weaken, or strengthen, different kinds of identities? What did newly invented artistic expressions in churches, or on coins and seals, mean for a society’s strength and resilience; can one be resistant by acculturating? How did populations respond to large scale geopolitical realignments, such as the fall of an established empire or the ascendency of a new power?
Other questions could be more theoretical and about the Mediterranean: How can recasting a rebellion in a ‘Mediterranean-light’ reorient our understanding of it? How does a comparative study of intellectuals, who perhaps sought to combat or shy away from challenges to their communities, reinforce or challenge our modern concept of the medieval Mediterranean? What does a Mediterranean pirate, journeyman, or monk in a poem from far outside the sea tell us about the idea of the Middle Sea in their region of the world–is it a place to hide away from problems at home, or a place to gain glory and renown?
