Pluriversality at Play: Art and Material Culture in the Thirteenth-century Mediterranean, University of St. Andrews Online, June 17–18, 2021

The Mediterranean has always been a ‘contact zone’, a place of convergence and divergence, of peaceful co-existence, as well as of war and conflict. Although the medieval Mediterranean was an area of cultural commonalities, it was also a place of religious, political and military oppositions.

It was a fluid space of communication, negotiation and contestation for Muslim, Jewish and Christian worldviews, as well as a locus of ambiguities, syncretism and blurred boundaries, a zone that enabled borderline cultures to emerge and flourish.

This workshop, organised by Dr Anthi Andronikou, aims to relocate regional arts and cultures within a broader Mediterranean context from an interdisciplinary point of view. Scholars in the fields of Byzantine, Islamic, Jewish and Western Medieval studies will probe interconnections across different ethnic, political, artistic and confessional spheres through historical and art historical perspectives. The workshop is part of the global encounters and exchanging theme of the School of Art History.

Keynote Lectures by Anne Derbes, Robert Hillenbrand, Katrin Kogman-Appel, Amy Neff.

Advance registration required.