Geographical Mobility and Cultural Itineraris during the Late Miggle Ages
Mobilitat Geogràfica i Itineraris Culturals a la Baixa Edat Mitjana
Published on Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Abstract
This congress seeks to take an interdisciplinary approach to a specific aspect of geographical and cultural mobility during the Late Middle Ages: the relationship between the geographical routes and itineraries taken by texts, books, artworks, and, in their wake, cultural ideas and tendencies. It will give special consideration to the Occitan-Catalan area as the starting, middle, and final points of these journeys. To investigate this topic, the focus will be on figures who are often left on the margins of study: the intermediaries and agents responsible for the transfer culture. Oral accounts, music, written texts, and artworks were all physically and intellectually transported by agents who were often under the cover of anonymity; this includes scribes, translators, minstrels, cantors, artists, and patrons or promoters, but also other figures such as pilgrims, students, clerks, diplomats, and merchants. These all played a fundamental role in developing, disseminating, and circulating ideas, and encouraged cultural and intellectual mobility in Europe.
Announcement
Universitat de Girona, 20-22 April 2022
Argument
Western medieval civilization was a highly intertwined society. Following the 12th century, which saw the flourishing and the peak of a powerful civic and mercantile bourgeoisie, and the progressive increase of the laity’s training needs, various phenomena extended and increased the communications networks and routes that linked different territories of Western Europe. This included the proliferation of religious movements, the birth and development of the universities, and the appearance and consolidation of the mendicant orders. At the same time, power relations were reframed, economic, political, and military expansion projects promoted, and contacts with non-Christian communities and with other religious and cultural spaces intensified.
This congress seeks to take an interdisciplinary approach to a specific aspect of mobility: the relationship between the geographical routes and itineraries taken by texts, books, artworks, and, in their wake, cultural ideas and tendencies. It will give special consideration to the Occitan-Catalan area as the starting, middle, and final points of these journeys. To investigate this topic, the focus will be on figures who are often left on the margins of study: the intermediaries and agents responsible for the transfer culture. Oral accounts, music, written texts, and artworks were all physically and intellectually transported by agents who were often under the cover of anonymity; this includes scribes, translators, minstrels, cantors, artists, and patrons or promoters, but also other figures such as pilgrims, students, clerks, diplomats, and merchants. These all played a fundamental role in developing, disseminating, and circulating ideas, and encouraged cultural and intellectual mobility in Europe.
The congress aims to explore questions including, but not limited to, the following:
- Which were the roads and routes followed by intermediaries? How did they travel and with whom?
- Which were the cultural places (courts, monasteries and convents, schools, notarial offices, artistic and scribal workshops, etc.) through which these intermediaries passed? And how did these places evolve?
- Can we define tendencies in the relation between the circulation of a certain kind of cultural product and existing routes?
- What impact did the mobility and activities of different cultural agents have on these products? 5) Which contacts were established with cultural agents of different religions?
To explore and discuss these questions invited lectures, a round table with specialists from different disciplines, and paper sessions are planned.
Submission guidelines
You are invited to submit a 20-minute-long paper in any Romance language or in English.
Proposals must be emailed to the address congres.mobgic2022@gmail.com
by the 23rd of December 2021,
and must include:
1) author’s full name and institution;
2) email address;
3) paper title;
4) abstract (maximum 2000 characters and 5 keywords).
The proposals will be evaluated by the scientific committee. The outcome will be notified by the organizing committee by the 30th of January 2022. The congress will be held on-site taking into account the health situation. If some of the participants are not able to assist due to restrictions on mobility to prevent the spread of the pandemic, they will be able to deliver their paper on-line.
Organizing committee
- Francesc Tous (Universitat de Girona) – Coordinator
- Anna Fernàndez-Clot (Universitat de Barcelona)
- Marina Navàs (Universitat Rovira i Virgili)
- Simone Sari (Universitat de Barcelona)
- Camilla Talfani (Universitat de Girona – Université Paul-Valéry-Montpellier)
Scientific committee
- Anna Alberni (Universitat de Barcelona)
- Lola Badia (Universitat de Barcelona)
- Alexandra Beauchamp (Université de Limoges)
- Gerardo Boto (Universitat de Girona)
- Joan Domenge (Universitat de Barcelona)
- Sadurní Martí (Universitat de Girona)
- Francesc Massip (Universitat Rovira i Virgili)
- Yolanda Plumley (University of Exeter)
- Anna Radaelli (Sapienza Università di Roma)
- Albert Reixach (Universitat de Lleida)
Organizing institutions
- Institut de Llengua i Cultura Catalanes - Universitat de Girona
- Grup de Cultura i Literatura a la Baixa Edat Mitjana (Narpan) - Grup de Recerca Consolidat de la Generalitat de Catalunya (SGR 2017-00142)
- Projecte «Cultura escrita cortés en la Corona de Aragón: materialidad, transmisión y recepción» - Universitat de Girona (Ministeri de Ciència i Innovació PID2019-109214GB-I00)
- Projecte «Ioculator seu mimus. Performing Music and Poetry in Medieval Iberia» (MiMus) - Universitat de Barcelona (European Research Council, CoG 2017, grant agreement 772762)
Subjects
- Middle Ages (Main category)
- Mind and language > Representation > Cultural history
- Mind and language > Representation > History of art
- Periods > Middle Ages > High and Late Middle Ages
- Mind and language > Representation > Cultural identities
- Mind and language > Epistemology and methodology > Historiography
- Zones and regions > Europe > Mediterranean regions
Places
- Universitat de Girona
Girona, Kingdom of Spain (17004)
Event attendance modalities
Hybrid event (on site and online)
Date(s)
- Thursday, December 23, 2021
Attached files
Keywords
- geographical route, cultural itinerary, cultural agent, late middle ages
Contact(s)
- Camilla Talfani
courriel : camilla [dot] talfani [at] udg [dot] edu
Information source
- Camilla Talfani
courriel : camilla [dot] talfani [at] udg [dot] edu
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Geographical Mobility and Cultural Itineraris during the Late Miggle Ages », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Tuesday, October 26, 2021, https://doi.org/10.58079/17hx
