The Multicultural Middle Ages

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.

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.

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.

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

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 at www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.

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: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.

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: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.

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: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.

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: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.

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: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.

What can we learn from those who came before us? How does the art we make reflect and define who we are? And why is the medieval past just so interesting?In this conversation with the MMA’s Logan Quigley, filmmaker Caroline Golum reflects on these questions and more as she discusses creating her most recent film, “Revelations of Divine Love,” which turns for strong inspiration to the narrative of the 15th-century anchorite Julian of Norwich. Logan and Caroline chat about the difficult and important choices surrounding scene design, narrative continuity, casting, and making stories from a past that often seems distant and strange feel relevant and meaningful to today’s audiences.For more information about Caroline, this conversation, and to see stills from Revelations of Divine Love, visit this link: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.

Ogres, VHS tapes, bad puns, oh my! Join three late millennial/early Gen Z-ers and premodern scholars, Alice, Erin, & Olivia, on a journey across the medievalisms and their media of the 1990s and Y2K eras.Follow this link for more information about Alice, Erin, Olivia, and this topic: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.

T. Liam Waters and Ana C. Núñez discuss the application of New Materialism for the study of the Middle Ages. Exploring different source bases, questions, and insights, Liam and Ana take listeners from Viking Age Scandinavia to Crusade-era Jerusalem.Follow this link for more information about Liam, Ana, and this topic: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.

Within a cultural climate where representations of the medieval are often employed to serve racist and white supremacist ends, the topic of medievalism becomes increasingly relevant. In this episode, Bryant White (Vanderbilt University) discusses his work on the use and abuse of medievalism in Francophone literary contexts. Bryant looks at how a trope used for othering in medieval travel literature finds its way into more modern, colonialist narratives, but also describes a more positive use of medievalism in the work of Patrick Chamoiseau from Martinique.Follow this link for more information about Bryant White and this topic: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.

Although much scholarship on the Middle Ages uses the model of “great men” to describe this time period, “Women, Books, and Pregnancy in Medieval France” focuses on the Christian patron saint of childbirth St. Margaret to promote a more equitable interpretation of first-hand evidence found in material objects that points to a more holistic understanding of the past. From evidence found in specific medieval prayer books, this podcast illustrates how women played an essential role in the ownership of books. By including discussions about the role of women in owning and reading books, this episode contributes to the idea that women had an active part in disseminating cultural knowledge. Through their role in determining the contents of specific medieval books, medieval women helped to shape the material legacy of the Middle Ages in France.Follow this link for more information about Andrew Rivard Hill and this topic: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.

Why does studying medieval Jewish women matter? The framework of intersectionality, a term coined by the scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, allows us to address how Jewish women’s lived experiences in the Middle Ages differed from those of either Jewish men or of Christian or Muslim women. Dr. Sarah Ifft Decker offers an overview of what we might learn—and how we might reevaluate our understanding of the medieval world—by centering the perspectives of Jewish women. Jewish women were marginalized both as women and as Jews, and these intersecting categories of identity shaped their lives in myriad ways. We can add nuance to our efforts to assess women’s work and women’s religious lives in the Middle Ages if we avoid taking Christian identity for granted and compare Christian women with their Jewish neighbors. Discussions of gender complicate narratives about medieval anti-Judaism and medieval Jewish “Golden Ages.” By including Jewish women in the conversation, we can enrich our understanding of Jewish history, women’s and gender history, and medieval history more broadly.Follow this link for more information about Dr. Ifft Decker and this topic: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.

As medieval scholarship attempts to decenter the West and move towards a global and multicultural approach, we frequently ask: how do we mimic this move in the classroom? Most often, however, this question and its suggested solutions still presuppose a primarily Western and English-native speaking population of students, as well as courses situated within U.S. or European institutions. Informed by her experience teaching comparative medieval courses in both U.S. and non-U.S. institutions (China), Dr. Elizabeth Liendo refocuses our attention in this episode on pedagogy of non-Western and especially non-U.S. institutions. She asks: How can we reconceptualize our understanding of the global medieval and the pedagogy of teaching the medieval period in non-Western institutions, to primarily non-Western and English second language students? How can we make the medieval and early modern period meaningful to an audience that should not be expected to center Western cultural narratives, texts, or history? How do we confront the overweighting of Western texts in the canon while also ensuring that our students receive a similar level of canonical competence as their U.S. counterparts? Dr. Liendo ultimately proposes a more global pedagogical practice that brings a more diverse range of students to the table. She explores challenges such as the Western-centric timeline of the medieval era itself, the association of medieval studies with white or European narratives, and the overweighting of Middle English authors, as well as outlining some potential solutions for class design, course materials, and practical teaching methods.Follow this link for more information about Dr. Liendo and this topic: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.

In this episode, join Reed O'Mara (GSC) as she interviews Elina Gertsman (Case Western Reserve University) and Sonya Rhie Mace (Cleveland Museum of Art) about their experiences co-teaching undergraduate- and graduate-level courses on the "global Middle Ages."Follow this link for more information about Reed, Dr. Gertsman, Dr. Rhie Mace, and this topic: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.

In this podcast, Dr. Stephanie Azzarello explores several miracle legends depicted in images that have been excised from a series of early fifteenth-century Venetian choir books. The legends include the so-called “Beirut Miracle,” the “Matariya Bathing miracle” and what may (or may not be) the miracle of the “Holy House of Loreto.”Follow this link for more information about Dr. Azzarello and this topic: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.

In a 1998 roundtable discussion, historian Ian Wood pithily said that there were more than two ethnic groups in Early Medieval Gaul, responding to a comment by fellow scholar Giorgio Ausenda. Much discussion surrounds Franks and Romans, but the ethnic landscape was indeed much broader, and extreme fluidity was the norm: strategies of identification prevailed over any biological sense of ethnicity. Samuel Rowe takes a historical, historiographical and analytical look at how ethnic identities coexisted and evolved in the 6th century.Follow this link for more information about Samuel and to learn more about this topic: https://tinyurl.com/mmapodcast.