The Medieval Studies Program’s visiting speaker series for 2024-25 is “‘Authenticity’ and the Middle Ages.” In a moment when the rapid spread of A.I. into virtually every domain—political, social, economic, creative—has fostered not only excitement but serious concern about how to define as well as preserve the “real” and “true,” it is worth remembering that anxieties about the “authentic” (Merriam-Webster’s “Word of the Year” for 2023) from its opposite are centuries old, for the medieval era was as invested in drawing, policing, and creatively traversing the fraught borders of the bona fide as we are today. At the same time, ever since the Middle Ages came to a close, what is and is not authentically medieval has been a perennial issue for scholars of the period. The visiting speakers who will join us on campus this year will help us to consider the apparently perpetual quest for the “authentic” as both a stumbling block and an opportunity to discover what we value most in our study of the Middle Ages, and, in turn, to think about how those values resemble, but also depart from, those held by our medieval counterparts. Events in this series, generously co-sponsored by multiple campus partners, are marked with an asterisk.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7: Professor Rachel Friedman (Arabic Language and Muslim Cultures, University of Calgary)
1:30 pm, ZOOM : Public lecture, “Authenticity in Islamic Debates: Reading the Abbasid Era”
(Zoom link TBA)
Co-sponsored by the Anonymous Fund, the Jay and Ruth Halls Visiting Scholar Fund, the Middle East Studies Program, the Religious Studies Program, and the Departments of African Cultural Studies and History.
FRIDAY, MARCH 14: Professor Derek Krueger (Religious Studies, University of North Carolina-Greensboro)
2 pm, Hagen Room (Elvehjem 150): Workshop for graduate students and faculty. Please contact Professor Leonora Neville (leonora.neville@wisc.edu) for the reading.
5 pm, Elvehjem L150: Public lecture: “Was Later Roman Society Heteronormative?”
Co-sponsored by the Anonymous Fund, the Jay and Ruth Halls Visiting Scholar Fund, the Religious Studies Program, and the Departments of Art, Classical and Near Eastern Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, and History.
FRIDAY, APRIL 25: Professor Emeritus Richard C. Hoffmann (History, York University)
2 pm, Hagen Room (Elvehjem 150): Workshop for graduate students and faculty. Please contact Professor Richard Keyser (rkeyser@wisc.edu) for the reading.
5 pm, Elvehjem L150: Public lecture: “Whispers of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Fisheries Texts from Medieval Europe”
Co-sponsored by the Anonymous Fund, the Jay and Ruth Halls Visiting Scholar Fund, the Center for European Studies (CES), the Center for History, Culture, and Environment (CHE), and the Department of History.