What Was Global in the Middle Ages? (A Roundtable)
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages (CeSMA), Univ. of Birmingham
Organizer Name
Naomi Standen
Organizer Affiliation
Univ. of Birmingham
Presider Name
Naomi Standen
Paper Title 1
Panelist
Presenter 1 Name
Simon Yarrow
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. of Birmingham
Paper Title 2
Panelist
Presenter 2 Name
Mark Whittow
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Corpus Christi College, Univ. of Oxford
Paper Title 3
Panelist
Presenter 3 Name
Susan Noakes
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Univ. of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Paper Title 4
Panelist
Presenter 4 Name
Carla Nappi
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Univ. of British Columbia/National Humanities Center
Paper Title 5
Panelist
Presenter 5 Name
Rhiannon Stephens
Presenter 5 Affiliation
Columbia Univ.
Paper Title 6
Panelist
Presenter 6 Name
Thomas E. Burman
Presenter 6 Affiliation
Univ. of Tennessee-Knoxville
Start Date
9-5-2013 7:30 PM
Session Location
Bernhard 210
Description
Historians are concerned to find the origins of the human interactions that have created the present-day ‘global’ world, but global history is often inseparable from the need to explain the triumph of western Europe. Medievalists may be able to offer other ways of looking at global history. Several research projects are comparing ancient and medieval societies across the globe and identifying the connections between them, but quite what we mean by the pre-modern ‘global’ is still unclear.
This roundtable will provide an opportunity for medieval historians, those who study the period 600-1600, to think about how we should define the global in the Middle Ages. What are the problems of definition, evidence and approach? Can interpreting the evidence for connections and comparisons across the globe in this period extend the study of medieval history itself beyond the confines of western Europe between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance? How does the global relate to the local? Were these conflicts or peaceful interactions? And can we provide new questions for modern global historians?
Naomi Standen
Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages, University of Birmingham
What Was Global in the Middle Ages? (A Roundtable)
Bernhard 210
Historians are concerned to find the origins of the human interactions that have created the present-day ‘global’ world, but global history is often inseparable from the need to explain the triumph of western Europe. Medievalists may be able to offer other ways of looking at global history. Several research projects are comparing ancient and medieval societies across the globe and identifying the connections between them, but quite what we mean by the pre-modern ‘global’ is still unclear.
This roundtable will provide an opportunity for medieval historians, those who study the period 600-1600, to think about how we should define the global in the Middle Ages. What are the problems of definition, evidence and approach? Can interpreting the evidence for connections and comparisons across the globe in this period extend the study of medieval history itself beyond the confines of western Europe between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance? How does the global relate to the local? Were these conflicts or peaceful interactions? And can we provide new questions for modern global historians?
Naomi Standen
Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages, University of Birmingham