Beyond Borders:  Mutual Imaginings of Europe & the Middle East (800-1700)

BARNARD COLLEGE Saturday, December 3, 2016

The 25th biennial conference of the Barnard Medieval & Renaissance Studies Program brings together scholars whose work challenges the stark border between Europe and the Middle East during the long period between 800-1700. Rather than thinking of these areas in isolation, this interdisciplinary conference reveals the depth of their mutual influence, exploring how trade, war, migration, and the exchange of ideas connected East and West during their formative periods. Distant worlds were not only objects of aggression, but also, inextricably, of fantasy and longing, as Jewish, Muslim, and Christian thinkers looked to each other to understand their own cultural histories and to imagine their futures. Plenary speakers are Nabil Matar of the University of Minnesota and Nancy Bisaha of Vassar College. A preliminary schedule is pasted below. You can register HERE. PRELIMINARY PROGRAM Saturday, December 3, 2016 Barnard Hall 3009 Broadway New York, NY 10027 Registration and Breakfast  8-9, Sulzberger Parlor Plenary I9-10, Held Lecture Hall Nancy Bisaha, Vassar College “From Medieval Christendom to Renaissance Europe: The Shifting Place of Muslims in the Pre-Modern World” Session I : The Politics of the Border 10:15-11:45, Held Lecture Hall Cristelle Baskins, Tufts University "Habsburgs and Hafsids on the Border of Christendom" Enass Khansa, Harvard University "Negotiating Legitimacy in the Andalusian Caliphate & the Catholic Kingdoms of Iberia" K. A. Tuley, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities "An Ensemble Performance : Sovereignty in the Eastern Mediterranean Theater in the Thirteenth Century" Sabahat Adil, University of Colorado-Boulder "Locating al-Andalus, or Where Does al-Andalus Begin and End and Why Does it Matter ?"    Lunch 12-1 Plenary II 1-2, Held Lecture Hall Nabil Matar, University of Minnesota "The Protestant Reformation and its aftermath in early modern Arabic sources" Session II : Trade and Artistic Exchange  2:15-3:45, Held Lecture Hall    Heather Madar, Humboldt State University "The Sultan’s Face Looks East and West : Sixteenth-Century European and Ottoman Sultan Portraiture" Antje Bosselmann-Ruickbie, University of Mainz "Byzantine Ornaments : Cultural Transfer in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries" Winston Black, Assumption College "Perversion and Perfection in the Orient : Twelfth-Century European Fantasies of Eastern Spices"    Session III : The Literature of Religious Interchange 4-5:30, Held Lecture Hall  Hossein Kamaly, Barnard College "The Christian Reformation : From a Shī‘a Catholic to an Augustininan Prior Turned Muslim" John Paul Hampstead and Amrita Dhar, University of Michigan "From Marrakesh to the Tower of London : Constructing a Jesuit Martyrology, 1580-82" Islam Issa, Birmingham City University "Dialectical Interchanges : Milton, the English Renaissance, and the Arab Nahdah" Concluding Discussion5:30-6:30, Held Lecture Hall Wine and Cheese Reception 6:30-7:30, Sulzberger Parlor *** QUESTIONS? Please contact Rachel Eisendrath, reisendr@barnard.edu