Books Available to Review for Volume 11
Ceræ is seeking book reviewers for Volume 11. While we are open to researchers at any stage in their careers, we are particularly seeking graduate students and Early Career Researchers. Reviews should be 800-1200 words, exclusive of footnotes, appendices, and references. For examples of review form and content, see the “Reviews” sections of previous volumes.
Books available to review are listed below (alphabetically, by author’s name) with abstracts from their respective publishers. If you are interested in reviewing a book, please email us at reviewscerae@gmail.com with the subject line “Vol. 11 Reviews.”
The deadline to request to review a book for volume 11 is 15 April.
The ancient Mediterranean basin was once thought to be populated by large, monolithic, cultural-political entities. In this conception, ‘the Greeks’, ‘the Romans’, and other stable and homogenous cultures interacted and vied for supremacy like early modern states or empires. Today, however, thanks largely to an ever-increasing archaeological record, critical and sensitive approaches to the literary evidence, and the impact and application of new theoretical approaches, the ancient Mediterranean region is instead argued to be full of dynamic microcultures organized in a fluid set of overlapping networks. While this atomization of culture has resulted in more interesting and accurate micro-histories, it has also challenged how we understand cultural interaction and change. This volume draws on this new understanding of cultural identity and contact to address the themes of adoption, adaption, and innovation in Pre-Roman Italy from the 9th–3rd centuries BCE. The contributors to this volume build upon recent paradigm shifts in research that challenge traditional Hellenocentric models and work to establish a new set of frameworks for approaching the tangled question of how ‘indigenous’ and ’foreign’ features relate to one another in the material record. Using focused case-studies, ranging from the role played by mobile populations in transferring ideas and technologies to the different ways in which ‘foreign’ artistic elements were used by Italian peoples, the volume explores what the — now commonly accepted — connectedness of a wider Mediterranean world meant for the people of Italy in practical terms, and offers new models for how concepts and ideas were transmitted, reinterpreted, repurposed, and re-appropriated in early Italy to fit within their local context.
This book explores the viewing and sensorial contexts in which the bodies of kings and queens were involved in the premodern societies of Europe, Asia, and Africa, relying on a methodology that aims to overcoming the traditional boundaries between material studies, art history, political theory, and Repräsentationsgeschichte. More specifically, it investigates the multiple ways in which the ruler’s physical appearance was apprehended and invested with visual, metaphorical, and emotional associations, as well as the dynamics whereby such mise-en-scène devices either were inspired by or worked as sources of inspiration for textual and pictorial representations of royalty. The outcome is a multifaced analysis of the multiple, imaginative, and terribly ambiguous ways in which, in past societies, the notion of a God-driven, eternal, and transpersonal royal power came to be associated with the material bodies of kings and queens, and of the impressive efforts made, in different cultures, to elude the conundrum of the latter’s weakness, transitoriness, and individual distinctiveness.
- L’espionnage au Moyen Âge by Valentin Baricault (French review)
Au même titre que la prostitution, l’espionnage est souvent considéré comme l’un des « plus vieux métiers du monde ». Il est vrai que l’on peut situer les premières utilisations d’espions entre les VIIIe et VIIe siècles avant notre ère. Au Moyen Âge, sujet de ce livre, pour collecter des renseignements, des acteurs s’imposent et des pratiques neuves sont mises en œuvre afin de répondre à des besoins multiples : militaires bien sûr, mais aussi diplomatiques et politiques. Lors des croisades, par exemple, les espions sont commandités par les grands barons souhaitant connaître les intentions militaires ennemies. Dans un autre contexte, le roi de France Louis XI organise une pratique du renseignement à but politique et diplomatique ; il est alors au sommet d’une pyramide vers lequel remontent des rapports provenant d’une « armée » de l’ombre. Ce sont ces sujets, et bien d’autres, qui sont ici traités avec finesse dans une synthèse aussi accessible que documentée.
Writing Holiness contributes to exciting new critical conversations in the study of medieval hagiography in Western Christianity. Recent years have seen innovative approaches to the literatures of sanctity through emergent theoretical discourses, such as disability studies and trans theory. At the same time, traditional methodologies such as manuscript studies and reception history continue to generate new perspectives on the production, circulation, and reception of the sacred textual canon. Through ten unique contributions that draw from both new and established theories and methodologies, this volume charts the development, movement, and reception of Christian hagiographic texts in localities ranging from the Iberian Peninsula to the Scandinavian Archipelago from the early to the late Middle Ages. Each chapter traces hagiographic development over generic, temporal, cultural, and linguistic boundaries, and considers the broader contours of the sacred imaginary that come into view as a result of such critically intersectional inquiry.
Traditional accounts of Arabicization have often favoured linear narratives of language change instead of delving into the diversity of peoples, processes, and languages that informed the fate of Arabic in the early Islamic world. Using a wide range of case studies from the caliphal centres at Damascus and Baghdad to the provinces of Arabia, Egypt, Armenia, and Central Asia, Navigating Language reconsiders these prevailing narratives by analysing language change in different regions of the early Islamic world through the lens of multilingualism and language change. This volume complicates the story of Arabic by building on the work of scholars in Late Antiquity who have abundantly demonstrated the benefits of embracing multilingualism as a heuristic framework. The three main themes include imperial strategies of language use, the participation of local elites in the process of language change, and the encounters between languages on the page, in the markets, and at work. This volume brings together historians and art historians working on the interplay of Arabic and other languages during the early Islamic period to provide a critical resource and reference tool for students and scholars of the cultural and social history of language in the Near East and beyond.
Between c. 1000 and c. 1200 AD, emigrants from Normandy travelled long distances from their homeland, spreading their political influence to the shores of the North Sea, the Irish Sea, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Baltic. Their willingness to cross the seas gave Normans access to new territories and new ideas, extending their authority and reputation far beyond northern France. But how and why were these Norman groups able to develop such power? The chapters collected here engage directly with this question by examining the sites and processes that underpinned this expansion. The contributors ask what different Norman groups took from the societies around them, and what they rejected; they consider how non-Norman powers — in Ireland, England, the Fatimid Caliphate, Byzantium, the Holy Land, and Rus’ — responded to, and were shaped by, their interactions with Normans in contested zones; and they examine how Normans understood and imagined their own relationship with the sea as a place of exchange, a zone of uncertain control, and an ambiguous kind of border. Drawing together material culture and written evidence, this far-reaching volume offers a fully-developed discussion of how, and in what ways, these Norman worlds and societies could be said to be ‘transcultural’, and in doing so, makes a compelling case that attention to movement and maritime exchange must be central to our understanding of the extension of Norman influence in this period.
This book provides a groundbreaking reinterpretation of the life and career of the preeminent polemicist of the Bishop Bonizo of Sutri. Through a meticulous analysis of Bonizo’s literary works and contemporary reports about his activities, the author uncovers the populist roots of both the bishop’s reform ideology and his vision of holy war against a heretical emperor, Henry IV of Germany. In establishing the predominance of Bonizo’s personal experience as a member of the populist Lombard reform community, the Pataria, in the formation of his thought, this study shatters the picture of a uniform Gregorian party and greatly strengthens the impression of the papal reform movement as a fragile coalition of multiple regional partners, like the Pataria, which enjoyed a fundamental unity of purpose but whose individual constituencies often diverged in their particular strategic objectives. This investigation, moreover, sets Bonizo’s story within the context of the urban life of his native Lombardy and examines the relationship between popular religious reform and the gradual development of communal government in northern Italy.
Beer and Brewing in Medieval Culture and Contemporary Medievalism is a cross-cultural analysis of the role that alcohol consumption played in literature, social and cultural history, and gender roles in the Middle Ages. The volume also seeks to correct or offer new insights into historical beer production. By drawing on the expertise of scholars of history, archaeology, Old and Middle English, Old Norse, and Medieval and Early Modern literature, the book shows how historical medieval beer and brewing has influenced nostalgic post-medieval nationalism and romanticized visions of the medieval ale-house seen in beer marketing today. The essays describe alcohol consumption in the Middle Ages across much of Northern Europe, engage with the various myths employed in modern craft beer advertising and beer production, and examine how gender intersects with beer production and consumption. The editors also raise certain critical questions about medievalisms which need to be interrogated, particularly in light of the continued use of the Middle Ages for white supremacist and colonialist ideals. The volume contributes to the study of the popular and historical understandings of the Middle Ages as well the issues of race and gender.
Although little is known of the process surrounding early modern childbirth, the lack of written testimonials and technical descriptions does not preclude the possibility of reconstructing the reality of this elusive space: drawing on the evidence of clothing, food, rites and customs, this collection of essays seeks to give tangible form to the experience of childbirth through the analysis of physical objects and rituals.An important addition to the literature of material culture and ‘wordly goods’, this collection of twenty-three essays from international scholars offers a novel approach to the study of pre- and early modern birth by extending its reach beyond the birthing event to include issues concerning the management of pregnancy and post-partum healing. Grouped into five broad areas, the essays explore the material advantages and disadvantages of motherhood, the food and objects present in the birthing room, the evidence and memorialization of death in childbirth, attitudes towards the pregnant body, the material culture of healing and the ritual items used during childbirth.
- Adélard de Bath: Un passeur culturel dans la Méditerranée des croisades by Olivier Hanne (French review)
Né dans le dernier quart du XIe siècle, Adélard de Bath est de ces lettrés anglais formés aux arts libéraux en France. Dans ses premiers textes de philosophie naturelle et de cosmologie, il remet en cause le legs de ses maîtres, puis décide de poursuivre sa formation en Italie du Sud. Grâce aux réseaux des rois normands d’Angleterre, il part soudainement pour la Syrie peu après la première croisade et s’initie plusieurs années sur place à la langue arabe. À son retour, il traduit des sources venues du monde musulman d’une grande complexité, à la fois en astronomie et en mathématique, il en domine les enjeux scientifiques, et va jusqu’à se passionner pour l’astrologie et la magie. Il devient ainsi l’un des initiateurs du grand mouvement de traduction des textes scientifiques depuis l’arabe vers le latin, se faisant le défenseur d’une méthode de critique comparée entre univers culturels, tandis que d’autres choisissent l’affrontement armé.
The Middle Ages was an era of dynamic social transformation, and notions of disability in medieval culture reflected how norms and forms of embodiment interacted with gender, class, and race, among other dimensions of human difference. Ideas of disability in courtly romance, saints’ lives, chronicles, sagas, secular lyrics, dramas, and pageants demonstrate the nuanced, and sometimes contradictory, relationship between cultural constructions of disability and the lived experience of impairment. An essential resource for researchers, scholars, and students of history, literature, visual art, cultural studies, and education, A Cultural History of Disability in the Middle Ages explores themes and topics such as atypical bodies; mobility impairment; chronic pain and illness; blindness; deafness; speech; learning difficulties; and mental health.
From the time of the Roman Republic, continental Europeans traveling to England brought knowledge of Greek and Roman intellectual culture in the form of books of every genre. But, until 1111 CE, the island contained not a single Platonic dialogue. And for the next two centuries, it had only a partial Latin translation of the Timaeus. A Latin Phaedo eventually appeared, in 1340, and the Meno in 1423. But this hardly limited the number of ideas people had about Plato. He was a proto-Christian, a sage, a scholar of the cosmos, and a healer. And he had an elaborate oeuvre that did exist in England, works of astrology, numerology, medicine, and science, including Cado, Calf, Circle, Herbal, Question, Alchemy, and Book of Prophecies of a Greek King. This book tells the story of Plato in Medieval England, from a name with too few works to a sage with too many. Based on a complete survey of all extant manuscripts, publications, and library records until the fifteenth century, it traces with extraordinary precision the movement of opinions and information about Plato from Europe to England and then into its various monasteries, schools, and universities. This erudite and illuminating sociology of knowledge provides novel insight into the dubious English career of our best-known philosopher. This is intellectual history and reception studies at its most surprising.
- Religionsgespräche und Religionspolemik im Mittelalter edited by Christine Reinle, Jan Thorbecke Verlag Patmos Verlag (German review)
Die christlich geprägten europäischen Reiche des Mittelalters waren in religiöser Beziehung keineswegs homogen. Kontakt, Kooperation und Konflikt mit anderen Konfessionen und Religionen mussten intellektuell und pragmatisch bewältigt werden. Unter den Medien, die die Auseinandersetzung mit anderen Religionen zum Gegenstand haben, nehmen dialogisch gestaltete Texte eine zentrale Rolle ein, in denen Argumente zur Absicherung der eigenen Position und zur Überzeugung der Gegenseite gesammelt wurden. Die Beiträge dieses interdisziplinären Sammelbandes thematisieren solche gedachte Religionsgespräche ebenso wie Hinweise auf real geführte Diskussionen über Fragen des Glaubens, spätmittelalterliche Zwangsdisputationen mit Vertretern jüdischer Gemeinden und Alltagsgespräche zwischen Christen und Juden. In den Blick genommen werden literarische und soziale Beziehungen zwischen christlichen und jüdischen Protagonisten, die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Islam in Spanien, die christlichen Mohammedviten und die konfessionelle Gemengelage im spätmittelalterlichen venezianischen Kreta.
This book explores the different functions and metaphorical concepts of alchemy in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Middle English poetry and bridges them together with the exempla tradition in late medieval English literature. Such poetic narratives function as exemplary models which directly address the ambiguity of medieval English alchemical practice. This book examines the foundation of this relationship between alchemical narrative and exemplum in the poetry of Gower and Chaucer in the fourteenth century before exploring its diffusion in lesser-known anonymous poems and recipes in the fifteenth century, namely alchemical dialogues between Morienus and Merlin, Albertus Magnus and the Queen of Elves, and an alchemical version of John Lydgate’s poem The Churl and the Bird. It investigates how this exemplarity can be read as inherent to understanding poetic narratives containing alchemy, as well as enabling the reader to reassess the understanding and expectations of science and narrative within medieval English poetry.
If you represent a publisher, and wish to send us a book for review, please note that it is our practice to send hard copies directly to the reviewer. Feel free to reach out to us at reviewscerae@gmail.com with any inquiries.
Volume 11 Call For Papers Deadline EXTENDED
We are also pleased to announce that we have extended the deadline for themed submissions for Volume 11: Metamorphosis, Transformation, and Transmutation to 30 April 2024.
We invite submissions of both full-length essays (5000-8000 words) and varia (up to 3000 words) that address, challenge, and develop these ideas. Ceræ particularly encourages submissions from postgraduate and early career researchers, and there is a $200 AUD annual prize for the best postgraduate/ECR essay. Submissions should be sent to the editor, and submissions should follow the guidelines found on our submissions page. Please visit our Volume 11 page, here, for further details on the theme for this issue as well as the submissions process.
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Image credit: Rosarium Philosophorum, GB 247 MS Ferguson 210.