The topics of identity and otherness are of the greatest relevance and actuality. To reflect critically and in an interconnected way on both dimensions concerning the context of medieval travel is to bridge a better understanding of the present in all its frailties. Such is the primary objective of the International Conference “Constructing the Other and the Self. Representations of Identity and Otherness in the Middle Ages”. This meeting will address the discovery of the other by the self and the absolute interdependence of both, showing how, after all, the borders that mark alterity are as tenuous as they are permeable, for the self is always an other, and each of the other is also a self. 

Travel leads to encountering, and encountering always generates identity and the exercise of otherness. Whether in the short journey between the village and market, or in the long voyage to the Far East, glances are exchanged and ideas, images and models with them. The world we know is perceived therefrom, and so is the other. Those conditions, after all, are construed a priori from a whole set of patterns proper to specific cultural, symbolic, and religious system, namely medieval europe’s. 

Congress topic guidelines 

Broadly speaking, the papers should be set against the background of representing identity and otherness in the context of travel – considered in its various dimensions: 

  • Geographical exploration (curiosity; desire to know) 
  • Pilgrimage 
  • Diplomatic missions (official and unofficial) 
  • Missionary work 
  • Military campaigns 
  • Trade 
  • Peregrinatio academica 
  • Religion 
  • Relating to royal/noble marriages 
  • Encountering different ethnic groups and religions (Jewish, Muslim, pagan, communities of foreigners…) 
  • Encountering the marginalised, exiled and excluded 

Organization: Instituto de Estudos Medievais 
Cientific coordenation: Paulo Catarino Lopes