The Mediterranean Seminar “Article of the Month”
Running from July 2020 to December 2023, The Article of the Month program was intended to highlight provocative and original articles and essays on any aspect of Mediterranean Studies from the earliest times to today, and with a particular emphasis on articles that address the broad issues of Mediterranean Studies and will be of interest to scholars in various fields and areas and times of emphasis. The program was superseded by the Article of Note program in January 2024.
Past Article of the Month Committee Members:
• Brian A. Catlos: Relgious Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
• Daniel Gullo, Hill Museum and Manuscript Library
• Perergine Horden, Royal Holloway
• Sharon Kinoshita: Literature, University of California Santa Cruz
• Karen Mathews: Art History, University of Miami
• Amy Remensnyder: History, Brown University
Articles of the Month
December 2023 • “‘There is No Race Here’: On Blackness, Slavery, and Disavowal in North Africa and North African Studies” by Leslie Gross-Wyrtzen: Anthropology, Yale University.
November 2023 • “The Maghrib in Europe: Royal Slaves and Islamic Institutions in Eighteenth-Century Spain” by Thomas Glesener: History, Aix-Marseille University & Daniel Hershenzon: Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, University of Connecticut.
October 2023 • “Mobility and migration in Byzantium: who gets to tell the story?” by Claudia Rapp: Byzantine Studies, University of Vienna.
September 2023 • “The Fluid Dynamics of Viscous Identities: Sedimentations of Time in Five Late-Ottoman Refuge Towns in Bosnia since 1863” by Robert M. Hayden: Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh & Mario Katić: Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Zadar.
August 2023 • “This Is Your Mihrab: Sacred Spaces and Power in Early Islamic North Africa - Al-Qayrawan as a Case Study” by Javier Albarrán: History, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
July 2023 • “Singlewomen in the Late Medieval Mediterranean” by Michelle Armstrong-Partida: History, Emory University & Susan McDonough: History, University of Maryland Baltimore County.
June 2023 • “Rethinking Poetry as (Anti-Crusader) Propaganda: Licentiousness and Cross- Confessional Patronage in the Ḫarīdat al-qaṣr” by Matthew L. Keegan: Asian & Middle Eastern Cultures, Barnard College.
May 2023 • “Between LamentingVicissitudes of Life and Celebrating Ottoman Authority in the Sixteenth Century: Māmayya al-Rūmī’s (d. 985/1557-9) Times and Poetry” by Haci Osman Gündüz: Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University.
April 2023 • “Translation and Polemics in the Anti-Jewish Literature of the Muslims of Christian Iberia: The “Conversion of Kaʿb al-Aḥbār” or the “Lines of the Torah”” by Monica Colominas Aparicio: Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society, University of Groningen.
March 2023 • “The Rise and Fall of a Peripheral People? Samaritans and the Discourse of Late Antique Disaster,”
by Matthew J. Chalmers: History, Washington and Lee University
February 2023 • “Aspects of Tree Veneration around the Cult of John the Baptist in Medieval Syria and Spain (10th–14th Centuries CE),” by Adriano Duque: Romance Languages and Literatures, Vilanova University
January 2023 • “General Average, Human Jettison, and the Status of Slaves in Early Modern Europe,” by Jake Dyble: Diritto Privato e Critica del Diritto, Università di Padova
December 2022 • “Domestic Slavery, Skin Colour, and Image Dialecticin Thirteenth-Century Arabic Manuscripts,” by Lamia Balafrej: Art History, UCLA.
November 2022 • “Religiously Mixed Families in the Mediterranean Society of the Cairo Geniza,” by Moshe Yagur: The Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Humanities and Social Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
October 2022 • “The Queen of Herbs: A Plant’s-Eye View of the Sephardic Diaspora,” by Sarah Abrevaya Stein: History / Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, UCLA.
September 2022 • ““There is no harm in it”: Muslim Participation in Levantine Christian Religious Festivals (750–1000),” by Anna Chrysostomides: Theology and Religion, Oxford.
August 2022 • “A Habsburg Thalassocracy: Habsburgs and Hospitallersin the Early Modern Mediterranean, c.1690-1750,” by Emanuel Buttigieg: History, University of Malta.
July 2022 • "Slavery and Interethnic Sexual Violence: A Multiple Perpetrator Rape in Seventeenth-Century Livorno," by Tamar Herzig: History, Tel Aviv University.
June 2022 • “Hair, Emotions and Slavery in the Early Modern Habsburg Mediterranean,” by Stefan Hanß: History, Manchester University.
May 2022 • “Islam Concealed and Revealed: The Chronicle of 754 and Beatus of Liébana’s Commentary on the Apocalypse,” by Lucy Pick: Independent Scholar.
April 2022 • “Jurisdictional Pluralism in a Litigious Sea (1590–1630): Hard Cases, Multi-Sited Trials and Legal Enforcement between North Africa and Italy” by Guillaume Calafat: Histoire et Civilisations, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
March 2022 • “The Justinianic Plague and Global Pandemics: The Making of the Plague Concept,” by Merle Eisenberg: Oklahoma State University and Lee Mordechai: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
February 2022 • “Habsburgs, Ottomans, and Venetians on the Frontiers of Dalmatia: The Capture of Clissa in 1596,” by Eric Dursteler: History, Brigham Young University.
January 2022 • “Hamid’s Travelogue: Mimetic Transformations and Spiritual Connectivities Across Mediterranean Topographies of Grace,” by Martin Zillinger, University of Cologne.
December 2021 • “Poetic Inscriptions and Gift Exchange in the Medieval Islamicate World,” by Olga Bush, Vassar College.
November 2021 • “Cross-Cultural Transfer of Medical Knowledge in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Introduction and Dissemination of Sugar-Based Potions from the Islamic World to Byzantium,” by Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, University of Edinburgh.
October 2021 • “Muslim Missions to Early Modern France, c. 1610-c.1780: Notes for a Social History of Cross Cultural Diplomacy,”by Mathieu Grenet, Institut National Universitaire Jean-François Champollion.
September 2021 • "Zoroastrian Law and the Spread of Islam in Iranian Society (Ninth–Tenth Century)," by Christian C. Sahner, Oriental Studies, Oxford University [Listen to the inteview on Let’s Talk Mediterranean]
August 2021 • "The Adriatic Sea 500–1100: A Corrupted Alterity?" by Richard Hodges: Archaeology, University of East Anglia [Listen to the inteview on Let’s Talk Mediterranean]
July 2021 • "A Late Antique Kingdom's Conversion: Jews and Sympathizers in South Arabia" by Valentina A. Grasso: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World - New York University
June 2021 • "Tracing a Gypsy Mixed Language through Medieval and Early Modern Arabic and Persian Literature” by Kristina Richardson: Queens College & The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. [Listen to the inteview on Let’s Talk Mediterranean]
May 2021 • “Identity, Mixed Unions and Endogamy of the Moriscos: the Assimilation of the New Converts Revisited” by Luis-Bernabé Pons: Arabic & Islamic Studies, University of Alicante.
April 2021 • “Provenance in the Aggregate: The Social Life of an Arabic Manuscript Collection in Naples” by Paul Love: Humanities and Social Sciences, Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane.
March 2021 • “Pontremoli’s Cry: Personhood, Scale, and History in the Eastern Mediterranean” by Joseph John Viscomi: History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck, University of London. [Listen to the inteview on Let’s Talk Mediterranean]
February 2021 • “The Four Black Deaths” by Monica Green: Independent Scholar. [Listen to the inteview on Let’s Talk Mediterranean]
January 2021 • “The Languages of the Invaders of 711. Invasion and Language Contact in Eighth-Century Northwestern Iberia,” by David Peterson: Faculty member, History, Universidad de Burgos. [Listen to the inteview on Let’s Talk Mediterranean]
December 2020 • “Athens,” by Martin Devecka: Assistant Professor of Classical Studies, University of California Santa Cruz. [Listen to the inteview on Let’s Talk Mediterranean]
November 2020 • “The Rise and Fall of Viticulture in the Late Antique Negev Highlands Reconstructed from Archaeobotanical and Ceramic Data,” by Daniel Fuks: Ph.D. Candidate, Bar-Ilan University, et al.
October 2020 - “The Inquisitor and the Moseret: The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages and the New English Colonialism in Jewish Historiography,” by SJ Pearce: Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese , New York University.
September 2020 - “Reanimating the Power of Holy Protectors: Merchants and their Saints in the Visual Culture of Medieval and Early Modern Venice,” by Karen Rose Mathews: Associate Professor of Art History, University of Miami. [Listen to the inteview on Let’s Talk Mediterranean]
August 2020 - “Should I Stay or Should I Go? Mycenaeans, Migration, and Mobility in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Eastern Mediterranean,” by Guy D. Middleton of Project KREAS, Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University, Prague.
July 2020 - “Enshrined Fortification: A Trialogue on the Rise and Fall of Safed,” by Prof. Uri Shachar of Ben Gurion University of the Negev.