Emerging Historical Perspectives on Christian-Muslim Interactions in and around the Mediterranean (c. 630–1614), Konstanz, March 21–24, 2024
From the beginning of the Arab-Islamic expansion in the early seventh century, Muslim and Christian communities interacted daily for sustained periods in several different geographical areas, from Iberia to Sicily, southern Italy and the Near East. In the last three decades, a new wave of revisionist and interdisciplinary methodologies, ranging from gender and global history to medievalism and the history of emotions, have broadened our epistemological horizons, creating innovative avenues of enquiry that provide new ways of thinking about the historical roots of Christian-Muslim relations. However, despite recent methodological advances and the various ways in which they enhance our understanding of the pre-modern Mediterranean (c. 630–1614), few conferences have attempted to apply these new approaches in a trans-Mediterranean context. By exploring the complex and much-studied topic of Christian-Muslim relations through the changing lens of methodologies, this conference aims to foster an interdisciplinary debate that, through comparison and collaboration between scholars from different fields, bridges rigid geographical and temporal frameworks. Early career scholars and all others interested in participating are thus invited to help demonstrate the historical value of new or nuanced methodologies by applying them to specific case studies (to be presented in c. 20–25 min papers).
The conference has three main themes:
- Innovative approaches to the source material
- Revised, new, experimental methodologies
- Macro-historical perspectives
The conference will take place at the University of Konstanz from 21–23 March 2024.