Dialogues in the Late Medieval Mediterranean: Methodological Encounters and (Dis)Encounters
Scientific Coordinator: María Marcos Cobaleda
Venue and Date: Casa Árabe, Madrid (Spain) – January 27, 2020
Meeting call:
The aim of this workshop is to launch a methodological exchange forum to analyze the panorama of the late medieval Mediterranean from different and complementary perspectives. During the last years, an increased number of projects focused on the relations between East and West, Christianity and Islam or North Africa and Al-Andalus had emerged in the international scenario. In the framework of these current research projects, this workshop has been proposed to achieve two main objectives: to create a dialogue space to share the recent research results of these projects, as well as to establish new research networks integrated by senior and young researchers which allow the development of multidisciplinary research lines about the late Middle Ages.
Within this general framework, the main goal will be to analyze the Islamic cultural legacy in a comprehensive approach based on the discussion of position papers which should be focused on the most relevant aspects of the participants’ research methodology in relation to the topic. In this way, the workshop promotes that senior and young researchers from the fields of History of Art, Architecture, History, Literature, Archaeology, Philosophy, Music, History of Religions and other related fields may present their research on the late medieval Mediterranean from a methodological point of view. According to the territorial and chronological restrictions, the main fields of study (but not limited to) will be those referring to the Islamic societies of this period: the Almoravids and the Almohads in North Africa and Al-Andalus; the Banū Ganīyya in Balearic Islands; the Normans in Sicily; the late Fatimid Caliphate, Zengids, Ayyubids and Mamluks in Orient; the Merinids in North Africa; the Nasrids in Granada and the Seljuks and early Ottomans in Anatolia. The Mudéjar manifestations will also be included, due to its nature, as well as other societies which maintain cultural relations with the aforementioned Islamic societies.
Proposals are encouraged to approach the study of these societies from a multidisciplinary perspective, as well as to give answer to any of the following questions:
– What were the contributions of these Islamic societies to the late medieval Mediterranean?
– What kind of relations existed among these different Mediterranean societies?
– How can be measured the influence of the artistic and cultural panorama of the Islamic world in the European one?
– Are there any specific elements of these Islamic societies which were adopted by the Christian world? In which way?
– Are there any specific contributions of Western Islamic societies to the Eastern ones, or vice versa?
– Was the difference of religion an obstacle to the cultural dialogue between East and West during the late Middle Ages? Or, on the contrary, can be found some points in common in the cultural and artistic manifestations of this period between Christian and Islamic societies?
