Rhetoric of Violence in the Medieval Western Mediterranean

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Lincoln School of Humanities, Univ. of Lincoln

Organizer Name

Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo

Organizer Affiliation

Univ. of Lincoln

Presider Name

Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo

Paper Title 1

Violent Emotion in the Chronicle of Alfonso X

Presenter 1 Name

Simon Doubleday

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Hofstra Univ.

Paper Title 2

Violence, Aristocracy, and Cistercians: A Subtle Balance between Lay Society and the Monastic World?

Presenter 2 Name

Francesco Renzi

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Univ. di Bologna

Paper Title 3

"Fue muy grande su alegría": Fernando el Católico, Violence, and Masculinity in Battles of the Historia de los hechos del Marqués de Cádiz

Presenter 3 Name

Grant Gearhart

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Univ. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Start Date

9-5-2014 10:00 AM

Session Location

Schneider 1135

Description

During the Middle Ages, writing could be used as a means to either safeguard or create individual and/or collective memories of violence, as well as to escape disruptive emotional and physical situations of subordination. Writing was also used by those who held political, religious and intellectual power and authority to impose and legitimize oppressive regimes and systems of control, as well as to promote disciplinary rules and cathartic or mystical processes of redemption. Expressions, representations and descriptions of episodes of violence have been at the core of recent historiographical studies (from Nirenberg, 1996 and Halsall, ed., 1998, to Guynn and Stahuljak, eds., 2013). However, far less attention has been devoted to exploring and analyzing the practice of writing about violence and the development of what we might term a ‘rhetoric’ of violence.

This session seeks papers that focus on the Western Mediterranean, especially – but not exclusively – the ‘multicultural’ regions of Iberia, Southern Italy and Ifriqiya, between 600 and 1350. The study of chronicles, official records, literary and artistic representations of writing of, under and because of violence, as well as the material culture surrounding it, will throw new light into such a multifaced phenomenon. We welcome papers which focus on the practices of writing (particularly history-writing) and the use of historical texts in the medieval period, and which engage with modern historiography of violence.

These three papers will explore some of those aspects through a series of fascinating case studies, with special attention dedicated to Iberia and Italy during the Central and Late Middle Ages.

Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo

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May 9th, 10:00 AM

Rhetoric of Violence in the Medieval Western Mediterranean

Schneider 1135

During the Middle Ages, writing could be used as a means to either safeguard or create individual and/or collective memories of violence, as well as to escape disruptive emotional and physical situations of subordination. Writing was also used by those who held political, religious and intellectual power and authority to impose and legitimize oppressive regimes and systems of control, as well as to promote disciplinary rules and cathartic or mystical processes of redemption. Expressions, representations and descriptions of episodes of violence have been at the core of recent historiographical studies (from Nirenberg, 1996 and Halsall, ed., 1998, to Guynn and Stahuljak, eds., 2013). However, far less attention has been devoted to exploring and analyzing the practice of writing about violence and the development of what we might term a ‘rhetoric’ of violence.

This session seeks papers that focus on the Western Mediterranean, especially – but not exclusively – the ‘multicultural’ regions of Iberia, Southern Italy and Ifriqiya, between 600 and 1350. The study of chronicles, official records, literary and artistic representations of writing of, under and because of violence, as well as the material culture surrounding it, will throw new light into such a multifaced phenomenon. We welcome papers which focus on the practices of writing (particularly history-writing) and the use of historical texts in the medieval period, and which engage with modern historiography of violence.

These three papers will explore some of those aspects through a series of fascinating case studies, with special attention dedicated to Iberia and Italy during the Central and Late Middle Ages.

Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo