In comics: how ancient rabbis upend “traditional” ideas of reproduction, gender, and humanity. A blog post commissioned by UC Press Blog about the book When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species.

Link: htt…[Read more]

Illnesses, murders, accidents, one battle death and one suicide – a wide variety of deaths were attributed to the Holy Roman kings and emperors of the 12th to 14th centuries. This book is dedicated to the contemporary tradition of the deaths of rulers in the ‘Staufer period’, the ‘interregnum’ and the first half of the 14th century from a…[Read more]

This article compares the accounts of Pope Innocent IV’s death in Salimbene de Adam’s „Cronica“ and Matthew Paris’ „Chronica Majora“, focusing on the narrative strategies employed to ascribe a good or a bad death to the deceased through the depiction of his final hours. Each chronicler attributed different misdeeds to the pope, for which he was…[Read more]

Glossing was an important element of medieval western manuscript culture. However, glosses are notoriously difficult to analyze because of their triviality, fluid nature, heterogeneity of origin, complex transmission histories, and anonymity. Traditional scholarly approaches such as close reading and the genealogical method often do not produce…[Read more]

This is the abstract and bibliography of works cited for an invited talk presented at the University of North Carolina – Greensboro on 9 November 2023. It was part of the Department of Biology’s Ashby Dialogue Series, devoted to the topic “Emergent Pathogens and Globalization: Past and Present.”

From 40 years of experience it is clear that spirituality has become entangled in abstractions: powers, perfection, supernatural, unreal, limitless knowledge, crystal ball perceptions, etc.
Dr Stephen Farra agreed with that – and went one better. Dr Farra stated “Our models are out reality. But our models are not reality. That coincides with the…[Read more]

Seminarprogramm und Literaturliste der Veranstaltung:

Verschwörungserzählungen im Spätmittelalter und heute

Master Hauptseminar
Institut für Germanistische und Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft
RWTH Aachen University
Marco Heiles

Desde que el hispanista francés Félix Lecoy llamase en 1938 la atención sobre las
peculiaridades de los papeles atribuidos a las mujeres en la obra de Juan Ruiz, numerosos
trabajos académicos se han dedicado a esclarecer en lo posible las coordenadas históricas
y literarias de esta presencia femenina en el Libro de buen amor, sobre todo en lo r…[Read more]

Historical Synergy: Mannheim holds that historical and political thought is determined by the socio-historical location of the thinker and the political aspirations and material ambitions of the group or groups to which he belongs.
2. Prehistoric Artic Hunter-Gatherer Synergy of Beliefs in Animal Spirits w/ Economic-Political Realities Erica Hill…[Read more]

A Cultural History of the Sea in the Medieval Age, ed. by Elizabeth Lambourn.

The cultural history of the sea during the Middle Ages is a young and dynamic field. Born only recently in the literary criticism of European sources, this innovative volume pushes out beyond this European heartland to explore the shape and potential of a cultural…[Read more]