David Morgan, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, will speak to us about "The Mongols in Iran." Prof. Morgan is the author of two seminal books Medieval Persia 1040-1797 (1988) and The Mongols (1988) among many other publications. His lecture will explore the nature of the Mongol impact on Iran, from the time of the invasions of 1219-23 until the end of the Mongol kingdom in the 1330s. Was it wholly destructive, as traditionally believed, or were there positive elements that historians, without minimizing the death and destruction that the Mongols brought with them, ought also to consider? The workshop will take place at 4:00 p.m. in Nolte 140.
11/06/09Join us on Saturday, April 4, 2009 for a sampler of presentations specifically targeted to undergraduates, but of interest to many others about the fascinating and often unexpected world of the Middle Ages.
Place: The President's Room, Coffman Memorial Union
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities East Bank Campus
Time: 10:00 am to 4:00 pm
Schedule (subject to change)
10:00am - Registration & Welcome
10:15am - Introduction to Exhibit of Medieval Books
10:30am - On the Road with the Crusades
11:15am - Food, Feasting & Fasting
12:00pm - Lunch
1:15pm - Beowulf: Fact, Fiction, & Film
2:00pm - Exploring a Medieval City
2:45pm - Readers' Theatre: The Chase: Harts & Hearts
To reserve space for you or your students, please contact Pat Eldred (PMEldred@stkate.edu)
Deadline: March 18, 2009
Sponsored by the Medieval Research Group, Metro State University, and the University of Minnesota's Center for Medieval Studies and James Ford Bell Library.
In Dante Alighieri's conception of the afterlife, where can you find the souls of sinners with their eyes sewn shut as disembodied voices shout about the fate of Cain?
Please send trivia responses in email with the subject line "trivia" directly to Gabriel Gryffyn (ggryffyn.cms@gmail.com). Previous weeks' trivia results will be announced en masse NEXT WEEK. We apologize for the continued delay.
November 6th, 2009Edited by UMN faculty Calvin Kendall, Oliver Nicholson, William Phillips, and Marguerite Ragnow, this volume brings a comparative approach to what, in recent years, has been a hotly debated topic within and across a number of academic disciplines: conversion to Christianity. These debates register the challenges inherent in attempting to understand a transformation that was at once personal and collective--a matter of inner conviction and outward conformity. The essays in this volume range from the late antique Middle East to medieval Western and Eastern Europe; from early modern Asia to the Americas and islands in the central Pacific.
Collectively, the ten authors encourage consideration of the conversion phenomenon comparatively across time and space. Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Prince of Austurias Professor of History at Tufts University, frames the essays in a broader global perspective in light of the two other major world religions, Islam and Buddhism, in his Prologue, while John M. Headley, Distinguished University Professor, University of North Carolina, considers the various conversion processes and their broader impact within the cultural transformation of the societies involved, foreshadowing "the uncertain extension of the universal jurisdiction of humanity . . . to the peoples of the globe" that is one of the transformative processes of the 21st century.
ISBN: 9780979755903 (hardcover) 2009, 449 pages.
Price: US $95.00