070260 GR Guided Reading - Geographical Knowledge and Imagination in Medieval Eurasia (2019S)

Drawing upon both visual (medieval maps) and textual case studies, this module will introduce student to the history of medieval geography. The lessons will follow an interdisciplinary and multicultural approach, covering a long temporal span (from the 4th to the 15th century CE) as well as a wide geographical compass (from Early Christian Europe and Byzantium to the Islamic world and imperial China). The first lesson will be dedicated to the theoretical and methodological basis of this research and will serve to highlight the cultural and historical dimension of space perception and representation. The course will be structured around four different categories.
First, the class will analyse the scientific tradition of medieval geography, from the importance of Late Antique compendia and handbooks in the teaching of geography in early medieval Europe to the influence of Ptolemy’s Geography in both the establishment of an Islamic worldview and the development of cartography in the Late Middle Ages.
The administrative and political context of geography will be the next subject to be discussed. Fiscal and military needs, as well as imperial discourse, played a central role in the diffusion of geography and cartography in the Late Roman Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate and during the Song dynasty in China.
As the third main subject, the class will analyse the religious meanings of representing space in early medieval Europe and Byzantium, focusing on both the T-O map tradition and the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes.
Finally, drawing on selected examples of pilgrimage narratives the last lessons will focus on the influence biblical exegesis had on reshaping the sense of place of the ‘centre,’ intended both geographically and spiritually, and of the 'periphery.'