Saturday, February 9, 2019

The Saturday schedule of De-centering the Global Middle Ages contained five primary source presentations (18-20 minutes in length). The presentations were followed by brief responses from University of Michigan faculty, who then moderated discussion.

Speakers were asked to provide materials on their primary sources (text, image, objects, etc.) and an abstract on the talk they presented, which were distributed to registered attendees ahead of the event. This gave attendees a chance to view the source materials more in-depth before the talk and help generate fruitful conversations.

The official symposium website with full program can be found here.

Live-tweet threads for this day’s events can be found below, in the order of the symposium presentations. The response and discussion tweets are appended to the original presentation thread. Please click the individual tweet to launch the longer thread in a separate window. Other tweets by participants can be found on the symposium hashtag #DGMA19.


Welcome information

Primary Source Presentation 1:

Cameron Cross (Middle East Studies, University of Michigan)
“Grammars of Globality”

Respondent: Catherine Sanok (English and Women’s Studies, University of Michigan)

Primary Source Presentation 2:

Craig Perry (Judaic Studies, University of Cincinnati)
“The Slave Trader of T-S 8J10.9: Elite and Subaltern Agents of the Global Slave Trade”

Respondent: Helmut Puff (History, German, and Women’s Studies, University of Michigan)

Primary Source Presentation 3:

Valerie Hansen (History, Yale University)
“The View of the World in 1225 as One Chinese Official, Zhao Rukuo, Saw It”

Respondent: Amanda Respess (History and Anthropology, University of Michigan)

Primary Source Presentation 4:

Manuel Giardino (Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford)
“Chinese Medicine in Mongol Iran: For a Global Understanding of Mondino’s Anathomia Corporis Humani”

Respondent: Peggy McCracken (Romance Languages and Literatures, Women’s Studies, and Comparative Literature, University of Michigan)

Lightning talk 4:

Sarah Davis-Secord (History, University of New Mexico)
“Late to the (Tea) Party: De-centering Europe in the Premodern Tea Trade”

Respondent: Noah Blan (Institute for the Humanities, University of Michigan)

Concluding Remarks:

Christian de Pee (History and Medieval and Early Modern Studies, University of Michigan)