Taking Up the Global Challenge: Expanding the Purview of Medieval Studies--Questions, Solutions, InnovationsIn recent years medieval scholarship and programing has become increasingly global in its orientation. Courses and books on the Silk Road, the Indian Ocean, the Medieval Atlantic, Viking Exploration, and Medieval Africa, for example, have made it abundantly clear that the medieval world was a complex and connected place. The revisioning of ‘medieval’ to extend far beyond the traditional bounds of Europe has offered exciting and expansive, and vitally urgent, calls to likewise expand and revision Medieval Studies Programs and Programing coordinated by Medieval Studies Centers and Regional Associations. This year’s CARA meeting convenes to discuss taking up the global challenge. We have asked this year’s speakers to address how they have implemented changes in programing, in structuring their centers and curricula, for example to become more global in vision and scope. Conceiving of the Middle Ages in a global context also has vital public outreach potential especially when it draws on the resources and missions of Museum collections to do so. Speakers will discuss their own institutional and research experiences, frames for outreach, intellectual goals and implications, and the potentials for the future in taking up the medieval global challenge.
- Vision, Scope, and Practical Steps at Georgetown (Sarah McNamer, Georgetown University)
- Making the Global Middle Ages Tangible through the Arts (Afrodesia McCannon, New York University)
- Object Learning: In and Out of the Classroom (Elina Gertsman, Case Western Reserve University, Sonya Mace, The Cleveland Museum of Art)
- A Global Middle Ages and Contemporary Medievalisms (Bryan Keene, J. Paul Getty Museum)
- Questions and Discussion
