How did Crusading change after 9/11?

 Related to my previous post and apropos of the "Hutaree," I'll be giving a talk entitled "How did Crusading change after 9/11?" at Shenandoah University.  I'll be talking about historiography, language, violence, and religion.  Anyone in Northern Virginia (or parts thereabout) is welcome to come.

On Language and Violence (The Health Care "Debate")

(image: crusaders killing Jews, 13th c. MS)

I have something to say.

In May 1096, Christians attacked the Jews of Speyer.  The bishop of Speyer protected the Jews & arrested a couple of the perpetrators.  This ended the violence at Speyer.  The Christians, however, moved north, up the Rhine, to Worms and then to Mainz.  They massacred the Jewish communities they found in those cities, over, at least, the protestations -- and armed resistance -- of the archbishop of Mainz.  From Mainz, the Christians split up, with 1 segment moving down the Moselle river valley to Trier and Metz, killing a few and forcibly converting the rest of the Jews in those cities.  The other segment headed north from Mainz to Cologne, where they found that the bishop had moved the Jews out of Cologne & to a number of surrounding communities.  It didn't matter.  The Christians found them and massacred them all. 

Call for Papers - 2010 Meeting of SEMA (Roanoke, VA)

Call for Papers

 “Natural, Unnatural, & Supernatural”

36th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Medieval Association

Roanoke, VA

November 18-20, 2010

The Thirty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Medieval Association will take place November 18-20, 2010, at the Hotel Roanoke, located in the southwest corner of Virginia in the picturesque Shenandoah Valley.  Because this year’s conference coincides with the 75th anniversary of the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway, we have selected “Natural, Unnatural, & Supernatural” as its theme.

We welcome papers and panels dealing with all aspects of the Middle Ages, but we particularly encourage those examining elements of the natural, unnatural, and supernatural in the medieval world.  As it does every year, the SEMA annual conference encourages submissions from all branches of medieval studies, including but not limited to history, art, science, philosophy, theology, archaeology, paleography, language, and literatures.

Proposals for entire sessions and for interdisciplinary presentations are strongly encouraged, although individual paper proposals are welcome as well. Offers to serve as session moderators are also welcome. 

Papers should be no more than 20 minutes in length and sessions should consist of no more than 3 presenters and 1 moderator. If submitting a full session, please indicate the intended format of the session (formal papers, roundtable discussion, panel, and so on) and titles of all individual presentations. All proposals should be approximately 250 words and include all contact information (mailing address as well as email) of the presenter(s) and/or organizer. Proposals must include a note regarding A/V equipment needs.  Email submissions are much preferred.

Email proposals by June 1 to:

sema2010 AT scholar.vt.edu

Prof. Matthew Gabriele
Dept. of Religion and Culture
Virginia Tech
342 Lane Hall (0227)
Blacksburg, VA 24061
USA

Please explore the conference website, where you'll find information on plenary speakers, accommodation, local dining, travel & maps, and local attractions. 


For questions or more information about the conference please contact:

Matthew Gabriele (Virginia Tech) mgabriele AT vt.edu
Dana-Linn Whiteside (Roanoke College) whiteside AT roanoke.edu

Humanities and Inhumanities

Perhaps it's something in the air, but there have been a number of essays defending the Humanities and Liberal Arts in academia in recent days (and I'm, admittedly, coming late to this party).  Just to point to a few things: The Chronicle of Higher Education hosted a number of articles in a forum on the Liberal Arts (behind pay-wall), Anthony Grafton had a book review +, entitled "Humanities and Inhumanities," in The New Republic, and then there have been a number of blog posts on the subject of graduate study and academia, all by humanists, which seem connected to this general trend. 

I actually don't have too much to add to this debate, but let me highlight Prof. Grafton's piece because, to my mind, everyone should read everything this man writes.  Anyway, Grafton is reviewing Louis Menand's Marketplace of Ideas, on the problems confronting the American university.  Grafton has some problems with the book.  They range from the purely factual -- actually, virtually every Ph.D. student in the Humanities has to do original, archival work, many times in foreign languages -- to the more conceptual.  What ends up happening by the end is that Grafton shows, while echoing a more general call for reform, how old these complaints really are (Menand sounds similar to the 12th-century scholar Bernard of Chartres), how interdisciplinarity ought to work, and how scholars of the Humanities (and that means undergraduates too) consider issues that are fundamental to how we live our lives.

There is an intellectual space for the Humanities, both in the academy and in the public sphere, and we as scholars and teachers shouldn't be afraid of advocating for the Humanities in both arenas.  Studying the Humanities will lead you to ask larger questions about the world but it can also help you get a job.  Similarly, the intellectual space for the Humanities is not an assured space and it's not a space that necessarily has to compete with other disciplines/ areas.  What we do is not more important that what scholars in the STEM fields do, just as what we do is not less important.  What we do is just important and we need to advocate for that fact, even until our throats get hoarse.

UPDATE 3/9/10:  Now, more from Anthony Grafton in The New York Review of Books.