Symbolic Middle Ages

Symbolic Middle Ages is a regular research seminar of the Centre for Medieval Studies, held since 2012. It aims to enable the local specialists, both hoary with age and very young, including students, to explore various aspects of the spiritual heritage of the medieval West, guided by the experience and support of our partners, aknowledged scholars from the United States, Germany, Italy, France, and Great Britain. The interdisciplinary seminar Symbolic Middle Ages is inspired by the similar seminars by Giles Constable, Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, Jean-Claude Schmitt, Johannes Fried, and others: it is not a private restricted club, but an open rostrum, where everyone who has something to say is given the floor.

The speakers included: Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, Marie Ann Polo de Beaulieu, Mikhail Khorkov, Olga Togoeva, Marina Sviderskaya, Alexander Shishkov, Lyudmila Evdokimova, Alexander Marey, Tatiana Borodai, Vincent Jolivet, Gabor Klaniczay, Verena Epp, James Clark, Peter Strohschneider, Niklaus Largier, Sarah Hamilton, Vivian Nutton, Volker Leppin and many others. The whole list of the seminars is available here.

However, compared to the experience of Western colleagues, the project has one difference: the Symbolic Middle Ages aims at the actualization of the cultural heritage of the Middle Ages in the context of contemporary culture. The phenomena of the spiritual life of that time will always be studied and taught in connection with the way this heritage influenced the formation of the phenomena of the Modern and Contemporary History, familiar to any of us, not just medievalists.