The Medieval Mediterranean and the Origins of the West

FAIN: EH-50148-07

Regents of the University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1077)
Brian A. Catlos (Project Director: March 2007 to June 2010)

A four-week institute for twenty-four college and university teachers in Barcelona to examine the formative role of medieval Mediterranean culture in the emergence of the pre-modern West.

This four-week Summer Institute examines the crucial role of the Mediterranean, c. 1100?1500, in the emergence of the West. As the site of intellectual, technological, commercial and cultural interchange between three continents and the three great monotheisms, the medieval Mediterranean has recently been the object of innovative scholarship, in a number of disciplines, shifting focus from the internal structure and development of discrete political states, ethnic or religious groups, and traditions to a study of their interconnectedness and interaction. Sited in Barcelona, an ideal location for such an undertaking, our Institute will focus on the exchange and circulation of people, goods, and ideas, with special attention to questions of religious and ethnic pluralisms, cultural contact, commerce and piracy, hybridity, transculturation, and the negotiation of identities from a multidisciplinary perspective.