Episodes
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What knowledge exists about medieval peasants and their lives? How do we know what we know?
In this episode, Elías Carballido González explores various historical approaches to thinking about the peasantry, considers the state of the field in the present day, and discusses a handful of examples with a focus on northwest Iberia.
For more information about Elías, medieval peasants, or this podcast, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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In this episode, Andrew Albin and Andrew Kraebel, the editors of Speculum's essay cluster on the textual cult of fourteenth-century mystic Richard Rolle, chat with MMA series producer and host Jonathan Correa-Reyes about Rolle's life, his works, and the contemplative life that he practiced.
This episode is a collaboration with Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies.
For more information about Richard, Andrew, and Andrew, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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Episodes manquant?
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In this episode, MMA series producer and host Reed O'Mara chats with organizers of and participants in Cosmic Ecologies: Animalities in Premodern Jewish Culture, a recent symposium held at Northwestern University and the Newberry Library. The conversation explores medieval Jewish art and culture, particularly cosmic ecologies and their continuities across the animal-human-divine-demonic spectrum. Special thanks to Elina Gertsman, David Shyovitz, Julie A. Harris, Beth Berkowitz, and Sara Offenberg.
For more about this topic and the speakers' research, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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Art and politics have long been intertwined in Spain. From the early medieval Visigoths to the Umayyad Caliphate to the fall of Granada under Muhammad XII in 1492, political, cultural, and artistic landscapes were continually reshaped as successive groups took power. Ghadi Amer explores the relationship between politics and art movements in medieval Spain, focusing on the paintings of the Hall of Kings in Alhambra, Spain.
For more about Ghadi's research and this topic, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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Afghanistan today is often called medieval: “a broken 13th-century country” (Liam Fox), “delayed by a few centuries” (Thomas Barfield), ruled by “a medieval band of degenerate savages” (Senator Cotton). How did this label come to take hold, and where do we go from here? Join scholars Tanvir Ahmed and Sabauon Nasseri as they discuss how Afghanistan has been made out to be medieval from the British Empire to the War on Terror, and how Afghan historical writing offers multiple escapes from the historiographical trap.
For further reading and more information on Tanvir, Sabauon, and this topic, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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Medievalism has been a common—and hardly innocent—practice in eastern European political discourses ever since the dissolution of the USSR in the 1990s. To use but one example, both Russia and Ukraine have laid claims on such prominent historical figures as Prince Vladimir/Volodymyr the Great, Princess Olga, Boris and Gleb/Hlib, as well as on such semi-legendary characters as Ilya of Murom. The recent military conflict has led to a renewal of interest in the history of medieval Rus’ and to the rewriting and falsification of this history, particularly in the public sphere through education and political discourse.
In this episode, scholars Anastasija Ropa and Edgar Rops discuss the appropriation of the historical and legendary figures of Prince Vladimir/Volodymyr the Baptizer of Rus’, Princess Olga, and Ilya of Murom in different Ukrainian and Russian media, particularly sculpture and cinema.
For more information about this conversation, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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Recent years have seen the re-ignition of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The historical monuments of this mountainous territory in the South Caucasus attest to the presence of Armenian people in the region for millennia. With the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict having culminated in the expulsion of Armenians from their homes after Azerbaijan assumed control of the region, these monuments are in serious danger.
In this episode, Jonathan Correa Reyes speaks with Professor Christina Maranci about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the rich cultural heritage of the region, and our responsibility as scholars concerning at-risk cultural heritage sites and monuments.
For more about this conversation, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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Scholar Adam Mahler reflects on their experience with researching and writing their article, "'“Ai flores, ai flores do verde pino': The Ecopoetics of the Galician-Portuguese Pine Forest," which appears in Speculum 99.3 (July 2024).
Denis of Portugal’s “Ai flores, ai flores do verde pino” [Oh flowers, oh flowers of the green pine] is the medieval monarch’s most famous cantiga de amigo and is one of the best-known songs of the Galician-Portuguese tradition. Many have read Denis’s “pine song” as an allusion to the Pinhal de Leiria, the pine forest that he planted—or so the story went. Though Portuguese historians and paleobotanists have debunked the Leiria forest’s origin story, a preponderance of documentary evidence from Denis’s reign suggests that the monarch recognized forests as poetically generative sites of political and social tension. "The Ecopoetics of the Galician-Portuguese Pine Forest" charts ecocritical and new materialist paths through the “pine songs” of Denis and other Galician-Portuguese troubadours by examining the medieval forest in its cultural, commercial, and poetic dimensions. This article contends that Denis’s pines and his poems are affectively and acoustically co-constituted, concluding that the Galician-Portuguese troubadour tradition, particularly in its woman’s-voice compositions, encodes important ecological knowledge.
For more information about Adam, Denis, and medieval Portugal, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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In this episode, four scholars from the "Conques in the Global World" project (Kris Racaniello, Adrien Palladino, Martin Lešzák, and Janet Marquardt) discuss their research on the diverse ways in which this French village has been (and is still) historicized, museumified, and "Disneylanded," producing a "living" medieval space in the present. This episode spans over one thousand years of history to interrogate questions related to monasticism, aesthetics, urbanism, nationalism, and colonialism at one of the most beloved sites for medieval scholars.
For more information, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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In this episode, Amanda Valdés Sánchez addresses the crucial role of Marian devotion in the Castilian domination of the former territory of Al-Andalus and its native Islamic population. She analyzes the Castilian exploitation of the local Islamic cult of Maryam as an essential tool for consolidating the Castilian control over the recently conquered territories of the South and the expansion of the colonial project. Her analysis also reveals the fundamental role of Mary in the articulation of the Andalusian Islamic population’s place in the Castilian colonial regime and its transformation. This is an exploration of the political significance of Marian devotion in the convulsive context of Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain, defined by the birth of the Inquisition, the emergence of new communities of converts to Christianity, from Judaism and Islam, and the progressive racialization of religious ancestry and ethnic differences.
In this sense, Valdéz Sánchez inquires into the political meaning of devotional trends in the changing Castilian religious panorama of the 1500s, analyzing its links to the transformation of royal and ecclesiastic policy and social attitudes towards religious and ethnic diversity, especially regarding the forced conversions of 1501 and 1526, the evolution of the collective perception of Moriscos, and the development of the “Morisco Problem.” Finally, Valdéz Sánchez looks into the Morisco response to the significant changes that characterized 16th-century Spain, analyzing how Morisco communities and elites, facing the threat of expulsion and the erosion of their rights and privileges, used the politically charged figure of Mary as a way to vindicate their place in the emerging Spanish Empire.
For more information on Amanda Valdéz Sánchez and this discussion, visit our website at www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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In the centuries after the Norman Conquest, as many as eight languages were spoken in the British Isles: English, Anglo-Norman, Latin, Norse, Welsh, Cornish, Irish, and Hebrew. Who spoke these languages, and how did they interact and influence each other? In this episode, Austin Benson discusses the linguistic and literary landscape of multilingual Britain, interviewing Dr. Sara Pons-Sanz at Cardiff University about Old Norse, Dr. Shamma Boyarin at the University of Victoria about Hebrew, and Dr. Georgia Henley at Saint Anselm College about Middle Welsh.
For more information about these speakers and their conversation, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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What goes into editing a special issue of a journal? How does the framework of race and race-thinking inform medieval studies today? What is the role of objectivity in the study of the Middle Ages? Join us for this conversation with the editors of the special issue Race, Race-Thinking, and Identity in the Global Middle Ages, published by Speculum (99.2) in April 2024.
This episode is a collaboration between The Multicultural Middle Ages and Speculum, and it was hosted by Katherine L. Jansen and Jonathan F. Correa-Reyes in conversation with Cord J. Whitaker, Nahir Otaño Gracia, and François-Xavier Fauvelle.
For more information about these speakers and their conversation, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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What is the relationship between so-called built and natural environments as they are represented in medieval literature, and what is the value of thinking about this relationship?
Amy Juarez, Chelsea Keane, and Rebecca Davis discuss the nuanced connections between medieval literary representations of “built” and “natural” environments. Their wide-ranging discussion covers the multiplicity of Middle English words, the form of medieval poetic constructions, and the problematics of disciplinary distinctions.
For more on this discussion, check out the episode notes on our website: multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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The producers of The Multicultural Middle Ages podcast sit down to talk about where we've been, what it's been like, and what's to come.
www.multiculturalmiddleages.com
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Scholars Thomas Morcom and Helen Gittos reflect on their experiences with researching and writing their article, "The Cerne Giant in its Early Medieval Context," which appears in Speculum 99:1.
The Cerne Abbas giant is a well-known figure cut into the chalk of a hillside in Dorset. Recent archaeological investigation has concluded that it had been cut in the early middle ages. Morcom and Gittos argue that he was originally carved as an image of the classical hero Hercules and that this apparently surprising date makes good historical sense. The landscape context of the giant indicates that he is best explained as marking a muster station for the West Saxon army. Although it is widely believed that the earliest written evidence for the giant dates to the seventeenth century, this study makes the case that he was referred to, albeit implicitly, in the liturgy for St Eadwold, whose relics were at Cerne. By the mid eleventh century, the monks of Cerne were re-interpreting the giant as an image of their saint. This is one of the many ways in which the saint has been re- imagined which helps explain why he has been looked after for so long.
This episode is an installment in a special partnership with Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies. Each episode is designed to bring you behind the scenes of an article published in an upcoming Speculum issue. This episode is hosted by Katherine L. Jansen and Will Beattie. For more about Thomas, Helen, the Cerne Abbas giant, and this conversation, check out our website: www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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Scholar Georgios Makris reflects on his experiences with researching and writing his article, “Jewelry and People in the Byzantine Cemetery of Parapotamos, Epiros,” which appears in Speculum 98:4.
Jewelry reflecting the tastes, needs, and practices of past users across all social strata constitutes one of the most representative portable arts in the Middle Ages. Jewelry’s typical lack of iconography or original context has often prevented scholars of Byzantine art from engaging with the medium’s socio-historical value. By bringing together artworks from museum collections and objects found in the cemetery of Parapotamos, in northwestern Greece, this study disentangles medieval jewelry from an inquiry into provenance or the development of fashion and instead situates specific jewels in a discussion about meaning on a social level, in terms of ownership and human behavior in Byzantium and beyond.
This episode is an installment in a special partnership with Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies. Each episode is designed to bring you behind the scenes of an article published in an upcoming Speculum issue. This episode is hosted by Katherine L. Jansen and Reed O'Mara.
For more about Georgios, Byzantine jewelry, and this conversation, check out our Show Notes: www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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What does it mean to experience a sacred text? How did Buddhism make its way from south Asia to the Japanese archipelago? How did the adoption of Buddhism impact the Japanese Middle Ages? Join Jon Correa Reyes and Reed O'Mara for a conversation with Charlotte Eubanks, where they discuss some of the many ways in which Buddhist beliefs and practices shaped medieval Japanese history, individuals, and landscapes. Additionally, they shed light on how engagement with Buddhist sacred texts was a deeply embodied experience for Buddhist monks and devotees.For more about Charlotte, Jon, Reed, and their conversation, visit our Show Notes: www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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Join your episode co-hosts Kersti Francis (BU) and Misho Ishikawa (NYU) for a lively conversation with Chris Chism (UCLA) about prequels that attempt to "diversify" preexisting fantasy IP. Together Kersti, Misho, and Chris discuss the racial politics of The Lord of the Rings and the new Rings of Power series based on Tolkien's Silmarillion. Throughout the conversation, they deconstruct the white supremacist myth of a racially homogenous (re: white) European Middle Ages to better contextualize and understand 20th- and 21st-century medievalisms. Topics covered include The Green Knight, Game of Thrones, nationalism and war, fanfiction and fandom culture, and how to teach/grapple with medievalisms in the classroom.
For more about Kersti, Misho, Chris, and this conversation, visit our Show Notes: www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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What did medieval music sound like? How can we read and perform the musical notation from medieval manuscripts? What does singing and playing music written before 1500 actually feel like? How did the early music tradition carry forward into the seventeenth century? In this episode, Reed O'Mara interviews musicologists Elena Mullins Bailey and Allison Monroe from the musical ensemble Trobár on the ins and outs of medieval song, both sacred and profane, and the mechanics of historical performance practice.
For more about Reed, Elena, Allison, and this topic, check out our Show Notes: www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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Scholar François•e Charmaille reflects on their experiences with researching and writing their article, “Trans Climates of the European Middle Ages, 500 to 1300,” which appears in Speculum 98:3.
This article gathers evidence of a distinct strand of writing in Western Europe from the sixth century onwards, which concerns itself with the relation between the seasons and sexual difference in humans, and particularly in discussions of Tiresias. From this tradition emerges what this article calls trans climatology, a conceptualization of seasons as gendered, of the climatically ordered possession of the seasons as transgender change, and of this change having a direct effect on the bodies of people, or indeed, of people's bodies having a direct effect on the climate.
This is the first installment in a special partnership with Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies intending to feature one writer from each new issue of the journal. This episode is hosted by Katherine L. Jansen and Logan Quigley.
For more about François•e, trans climatology, and this conversation, check out our Show Notes: www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.
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