Cost Action 18129 Islamic Legacy: Narratives East, West, South, North of the Mediterranean (1350-1750) 

The purpose of the CA18129 IS-LE is to provide a transnational and interdisciplinary approach capable of overcoming the segmentation that currently characterizes the study of relations between Christianity and Islam in late medieval and early modern Europe and the Mediterranean. Over the last thirty years, some separate geographic and academic areas have been defined in this research field: the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Central Europe and the Balkans, and Greece and the different islands of the Mediterranean. These different geographical areas have been analysed in isolation and have been further disjointed in a scientific context defined by the separation of disciplines and chronologies. The intention of the Action is to mitigate this academic distortion by creating a common space for scientific exchange and reflection through the organization of conferences, workshops, training schools and other academic activities. This space currently involves institutions from 31 different European and Mediterranean countries as well as around 100 senior and junior researchers coming from different disciplines (history, history of art, philology, anthropology, social sciences, history of the science, politics, etc.). The creation of this network will help to provide a comprehensive understanding of past relations between Christianity and Islam in the European context through the addressing of three main research problems: otherness, migration and borders. Beyond the strictly academic realm, IS-LE also aims to revive diversity and Euro- Mediterranean relations in education, at a moment when Europe is at a cultural and political crossroads.  

Abstract of the Workshop: The aim of this workshop is to approach the question of the relationship between Christianity and Islam through the study of the production, circulation and uses of Arabic manuscripts, and mainly Korans, in the late medieval and early modern Mediterranean Europe. Our assumption is that the Balkans, Italy and the Iberian Peninsula form an axis of circulation which is especially significant for our understanding of the Mediterranean Sea as a comprehensive space of cultural, political and religious contact. The history of Arabic manuscripts in Europe is closely linked to the evolution of the relationship between Christianity and Islam in this period. During the Middle Ages, the knowledge of Arabic and Islam was strongly determined by  the imperatives of religious controversy, but gradually it stirred a genuine interest in wider cultural and intellectual issues. The emergence of modern Orientalism has to do with the creation of philological, historiographical and critical tools, that produced commentaries, marginal notes, glosses, translations…; an amount of knowledge that drastically transformed, not only the European perception of Islam, but the very conception of religion as a historical and sociological phenomenon. The constitution of great modern libraries, with their respective collections of Oriental manuscripts, illustrates the logic of the integration of Arabic texts into the new geography of knowledge. The circulation of manuscripts was linked to the circulation of persons. The logic of economic exchanges, political and imperial rivalries, determined also the displacements of cultural artefacts. The overlapping of networks of communication that work at a global scale with new political formations often confronted among them, designs a complex map in which the circulation of manuscripts means also their re-signification. A manuscript produced in Spain by Moriscos is brought to the papal Rome, and examined by Maronite Christians born in Aleppo, whose main concern was the constitution of a canonical Christian Arabic. Each of the persons involved in this story had their own interests, their own skills, and their own position in society. The circulation of texts supposes not only the movement of an object through a frontier, or the translation from one language to another, from one culture to another, but also a continuous shift of meaning that works at different scales. The Workshop is jointly coordinated with the MINECO Project “Orientalismo y verdad: la influencia de la erudición oriental en el desarrollo del pensamiento crítico en la España Moderna”, (FFI2017-86538-P), IP’s: Fernando Rodríguez Mediano y Mercedes García-Arenal.  

Deadline and details: Researchers interested to participate in the workshop are invited to submit their proposals with a title, an abstract (no more than 300 words) and a brief bio (maximum of 10 lines) to Dr Roberto TOTTOLI (rtottoli@unior.it) and Dr Fernando RODRÍGUEZ MEDIANO (fernando.rmediano@cchs.csic.es) before November 30, 2019.  

Reimbursement of expenses: CA1829 might be able to reimburse travel and accommodation 

Scientific Coordinators: Roberto TOTTOLI (rtottoli@unior.it) and Fernando RODRÍGUEZ MEDIANO (fernando.rmediano@cchs.csic.es)