Eleven enthusiastic speakers will be ready to present a wide variety of research topics at this conference with the expectation of stimulating your thoughts on this year's contemporary theme.
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Keynote:
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'Languages and Functions of Medieval Exclusion'
In her keynote 'Languages and Functions of Medieval Exclusion', Dr Nora Berend will demonstrate how, in the high and late medieval period, the terminology that was used in society contributed to the mechanisms of exclusion. In this context, she will additionally explore the concept of agency and the conflict over when and whom to exclude.
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Dr Nora Berend is Reader in European History at the Faculty of History and Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Her research interests are centred around medieval history and the use of medieval themes in modern nationalism. Dr Berend has worked on medieval social and religious history, including minorities and state building. Her publications include At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘pagans’ in medieval Hungary (c.1000 – c. 1300) (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and Religious Minorities in Christian, Jewish and Muslim Law (5th – 15th centuries), edited with John Tolan, Capucine Nemo-Pekelman and Youna Masset (Brepols, forthcoming).
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Student Speakers
In addition to Dr Berend's lecture, 10 students will be presenting their ongoing research. These presentations will feature a broad variety of topics related to the students' specialisation in either Classics, Premodern Literature, or Premodern History.
Photography by Caroline Penris.
Between Being a Risk and Being at Risk: Social In/Exclusion of Helots in Ancient Sparta
The helots, who belonged to the lower class of Spartan society, revolted against the Spartans on several occasions. Their substantial contribution to agriculture, however, ensured the Spartan male citizens’ focus on military affairs. Were the helots threatening or contributing to Spartan society? Could the helots be defined by either “being a risk” or “being at risk”? This paper is an attempt to unveil the situation of the Spartan helots from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period. In addition to previous studies in which scholars depicted the helots’ position through their involvement in war and their financial situation, this exploration of the helots’ social situation will be undertaken from a cultural perspective. To reveal what it meant to be a helot in ancient Sparta, this research focuses on their origin, their involvement in military affairs, their cultural activities, their marriage rituals, and their revolts against the Spartans.
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Shanshan Bai |
Shanshan obtained her bachelor degree in Event Management in 2016, but her focus has recently shifted to ancient history. She is currently in her first year of the Research Master Classical, Medieval, and Early Modern Studies in Groningen. Her current research interests concern the history of ancient Greece, particularly Late Classical and Hellenistic Sparta. Her preference is to explore the situation of women and other marginal groups in the ancient world. | E-mail.
Giulia Biagioni |
The Byzantine Diaspora in the Late Middle Ages. Greek Communities in Southern Italy
As a consequence of the pressure exerted by the Ottoman Turks on the Byzantine Empire, most of the inhabitants of the Eastern Roman Empire took refuge in Italy. While the Byzantine immigration has been studied as a phenomenon related to the activity of those Greeks who collaborated with the Humanists in Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples, less attention has been paid to the communities who lived in Southern Italy and had no contact with the northern humanists. Although the reconstruction of their settlements in Apulia, Calabria, Sicily and Campania is hampered by a lack of information on their activity in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, linguistic and cultural evidence proves their wide presence in these regions. The aim of this research is to trace the Byzantine presence in Southern Italy during these centuries and investigate the reasons that could have led them to settle in this part of Italy.
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Giulia completed her Bachelor in Italian Literature at the University of Florence in 2015. Due to her interest and the focus of her research on medieval handwriting and correspondence, she wrote her thesis on an unpublished exchange of letters between Pietro from Candia and Pope Innocenzo VII. During her studies, she worked as a journalist in Florence and Pistoia, collaborating with several Italian newspapers. | E-mail.
The Nature of the Beast: Depictions of Otherness in the Roman de Fauvel (BN fr. 146)
My study contributes to the burgeoning field of historical disability studies by exploring somatic dis/ability in early fourteenth-century France. In the key text, Schrover and Schinkel refer to discourses of alterity, and how these can be invoked and further problematised by the insiders to shun whoever they deem Other to exclude them from society. Yet how does a group deal with difference among themselves? What if one who already is an insider suddenly becomes an outsider; how is this discursively constructed? To what extent can one speak of a dis/abling society in this context? In my presentation, I will investigate relationships between textual and pictorial depictions of dis/abled, abnormal, and beastly bodies in the Roman de Fauvel, an early fourteenth-century French allegorical satire play that subverses both crown and clergy by making the horse Fauvel a king and having everyone worship him, even though he is the very embodiment of sin.
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Sven Gins |
Sven obtained his Bachelor in History cum laude at Ghent University with his dissertation on nightmare interpretations in early modern Western Europe. A Research Master student at the University of Groningen, he currently continues inquiry into intellectual history, representations, and digital humanities. His latest work has explored medieval dancing mania, and he is currently assisting in the setup of an exhibition that will conclude Dr Megan Williams' research project 'Paper Princes'. | E-mail | LinkedIn | Academia | Twitter.
Giel maan |
Labelled in Lyon. Depictions of ‘The Turk’ in French Sources from the Early Sixteenth Century
On 7 July 1533, Jean Hannart, Imperial ambassador, wrote from Lyon “Sire, today a Moorish man arrived here, sent by Barbarossa to the Most Christian King [of France].” Three years later an alliance was established between the king of France and the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. In the conference’s key text Marlou Schrover and Willem Schinkel claim that “[d]iscourses compete with one another to become the dominant system of meaning within their discursive environment.” (1125) Especially an event like the arrival of a new group of refugees brings about a multitude of discourses. Although in 1533 there was no case of migration, only of visitation, it is worth seeing how this first real-life contact for many Frenchmen with Ottomans in Lyon affected the local discourse. Does the aforementioned statement hold true for this case? I will investigate by comparing three sources which were all published in Lyon between the late 1530s and the early 1540s: Lyon marchant, Copie d’une lettre venue de Adrinopoli and Recueil de diverses histories touchant les situations de toutes regions et pays; respectively a play, a pamphlet and a geographical description of the world.
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Previous to the Research Master CMEMS, Giel studied History. He concluded his bachelor with a thesis about a fifteenth-century play, Le Mystère de la Passion d’Arnoul Gréban, investigating how late-medieval social realities were ingrained in it. His focus lies in the late medieval and early modern period, mostly in France. He is interested in the interplay of diverse media (imagery, text, theatre) and has a preference for the microhistorical approach. Giel is currently involved as a student assistant in the "Cities of Readers" research project. | E-mail.
Why do the English have Tails? Legitimizing Bodily Exclusion and Ethnic Boundary Making during the Anglo-Dutch Wars
During the seventeenth-century Anglo-Dutch wars, Dutch pamphlets alluded to the centuries-old slander of the “Anglicus Caudatus”. This paper does not aim to explain the satirical uses of the epithet. Instead, it analyses the legitimization of this form of ethnic boundary making by discussing a Dutch pamphlet which explained where the English tail came from, as well as two English sources elaborating on its origins, explaining as well as legitimizing the issue from a political, religious and scientific points of view. The paper aims to provide more insight into the struggle of making and shifting ethnic boundaries through discourses in early modern Europe.
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Gooitske Nijboer |
Gooitske obtained her Bachelor in History in 2016. Her final thesis focused on the Jansenist heresy and its influence on French political change in the eighteenth century. Currently, she is in her first year of the Research Master Classical, Medieval, and Early Modern Studies. Her research interests cover late medieval and early modern thought on Catholic liturgy and divine knowledge, but do not exclude contemporary anthropological theories of these concepts. | E-mail.
Miente Pietersma |
Moving Horizons. Locating the Conquest of the Regions East of the Elbe in the Chronicles of the German Empire.
Throughout the High Middle Ages, the Slavic lands east of the Elbe experienced intensifying contacts with the German Empire through warfare, Christianization, and trade. In this paper, I intend to analyse the discourses of cultural inclusion and exclusion of the Slavic lands in German historiographical narratives from the eleventh to the twelfth century, aiming to understand the medieval frontier along the Elbe according to the political language of its own time. Among other things, this entails understanding the representation of cultural differences in the context of the specific genre-characteristics of medieval chronicles. Furthermore, this paper takes into account the multiplicity of the discourses surrounding Slavic tribes. In one and the same chronicle, for example, Slavs and Germans could be represented as culturally different yet unified in their adherence, or future subjugation, to Christianity.
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Miente completed his Bachelor in History at the University of Groningen in 2016. He wrote his bachelor’s thesis about the interplay between social stratification and political culture in eleventh and twelfth century Germany, zooming in on the importance of collective bonds among ministerials in the relationships with their lords. Miente’s research focuses on the formation and expression of collective mentalities in the Middle Ages as reflected in various sources, from legal documents to historiographical works. Miente is currently involved as a research assistant in the project 'Histories of Healthy Ageing'. | E-mail.
The Discourse of Local Loyalty: Citizenship Debated After the Alexandrian riots of 38 AD
In the year 38 AD there were violent riots directed against the Jewish population in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. In the aftermath of the riots both Jewish and non-Jewish Alexandrian embassies went to the court of Emperor Caligula to plead for their cause. While both ancient and contemporary scholars have debated the cause of these riots, this paper will specifically focus on how competing ancient discourses on this event were used to frame the ‘Other’ as inclusive/loyal and exclusive/disloyal to the urban interests of Alexandria and how religious notions about citizenship influenced these discourses.
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Yoram Poot |
Yoram obtained his Bachelor of History at the University of Groningen. He wrote his thesis about the pacification of radical Irish republicanism in the 1980s. While interested in societal conflicts and transformations in both premodernity and modernity, he is currently working on these themes within the ancient period, with a specific interest in the ‘clash of cultures’ during the Hellenistic Period. He is also involved as a student assistant in the research project ‘Connected Contests’ which examines networks of festivals in antiquity. | E-mail.
Bianca Seinen |
What Has Been, Will Be Again: Marlowe, 'The Dutch Church Libel’, and Anti-Alien Discourse in Late Sixteenth-Century England
'The Dutch Church Libel' is a 'most insolent' piece of writing that appeared on the wall of the Dutch Churchyard at Broadstreet Ward in London on 5 May 1593. The document contains a clear anti-stranger message directed at London's inhabitants of Dutch and French descent, as well as references to three works by the popular playwright Christopher Marlowe: Tamburlaine the Great Part (1589), The Jew of Malta (1592), and The Massacre at Paris (1593). In the conference's keytext, Schrover and Schinkel state that 'the situational, institutional and social contexts shape and affect discourses and discourses influence social and political reality (1125). My research will demonstrate how Marlowe's plays were shaped by contemporary events and discourse, and how they, in their turn, quite contrary to present-day scholarly opinions, played an active part in constructing the anti-alien discourse found in 'The Dutch Church Libel'.
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Bianca completed her Bachelor in English Language and Culture cum laude at the University of Groningen in 2016. Loving both the literary and the linguistic side of the English language, she followed the minor Applied Linguistics, while researching Christopher Marlowe's Dido Queene of Carthage and its interaction with its historical context for her final thesis. Bianca is currently in her first year of the Research Master Classical, Medieval, and Early Modern Studies. Her present research focuses on late medieval and early modern drama in their socio-political context. | E-mail | LinkedIn.
“There Is Much Kindness in the Jew”: Christian Jews and Jewish Christians in Robert Wilson's The Three Ladies of London
Robert Wilson’s 1581 morality play bears witness to rapidly changing attitudes to England’s domestic state of affairs and international trade relations. This allegory addresses anxieties underlying relentless domestic usury practices as well as England’s developing trade with Turkey. Punctuated by fierce anti-Catholic sentiments, the play provides an unusually nuanced picture of London’s economic hardships and the characterisation of foreigners, bar Catholics, compared to contemporary plays. Wilson’s play features a virtuous (or at the very least, neutral) Jew and Turk, while its main villains are characterised by Catholic vices. In my presentation, I will focus on signs of the reformulation of the discursive order (Schrover and Schinkel 1125) in Wilson’s portrayal of the Jew and the Turk. Put in stark contrast to the play’s Catholic villains, their interests ethically align with those of Wilson’s contemporary audience, though they remain alienated in terms of religion. This ambiguous representation, I argue, indicates the presence of competing discourses of old stereotypes versus new, more nuanced perspectives on Jews and Turks.
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Laura Steenhuis |
Laura completed her Bachelor in English Language and Culture at the University of Groningen in 2016. She wrote her final thesis about John Fletcher’s 1611 play The Woman’s Prize, or The Tamer Tamed, focusing on the extent to which the play can be interpreted as subversive. Laura’s current research concentrates on performativity in medieval and early modern England, particularly in drama. | E-mail.
Bas Teunissen |
Keep Yourself Alive: The Stockholm Syndrome in Ancient Roman Slavery
In 1973, the Norrmalmstorg robbery took place at a Kreditbanken building in Stockholm, Sweden. The hostage taking took six days, during which the hostages developed certain feelings for their captivators as some kind of survival mechanism, referred to as the Stockholm Syndrome. This sort of irrational and emotional bond develops when a person is in some kind of danger. Research on the Stockholm Syndrome has been applied to historical events, even prehistoric ones. However, it has never been used as an approach to Roman slavery. This was a harsh institution in which the slaves were in constant danger of physical abuse, but also in hope of reward, maybe even freedom. In my paper, I will focus on the question whether the Stockholm Syndrome somehow played a role in subduing the Roman slaves.
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Bas completed his BA degree in History at the University of Groningen in 2016. He wrote his thesis about the second and first century B.C. Roman Slave Wars and compared these to a number of early modern slave uprisings in 19th century Southern USA to find out why there were so few slave revolts in Roman Italy. He focuses on ancient Roman history and tries to combine this with another interest of his: social psychology. | E-Mail.
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