Date/Time
Date(s) - 30 Jan 2013
5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Location
Faculty House, Room 2
Category(ies) No Categories
The next meeting of the University Seminar on Medieval Studies will take place on Wednesday, January 30, from 5:30-7:00pm in Room 2 of Faculty House (Columbia University).
Yitzhak Hen, of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, will speak on “The Intellectual Formation of Arian Identity in Ostrogothic Italy.”
Throughout its existence in western Europe, Arianism was condemned as a heresy by the mainstream Catholic orthodoxy. Nevertheless, the Barbarians were reluctant to abandon the doctrine. Could it be that Arianism was more than a mere religious issue? In my forthcoming book—Western Arianism: Politics and Religious Culture in the Early Medieval West—I am arguing that apart from offering a different interpretation to the nature of Christ, Arianism had a complicated and multi-layered social, cultural and political function in the Barbarian kingdoms of the early medieval West. Furthermore, it appears that Arianism meant different things to different people, and that our tendency to approach Arianism as a coherent Christian doctrine distorts a much more delicate and nuanced reality. In this paper I shall look at some Arian manuscripts and compositions in order to understand the ways in which Arianism was used by King Theoderic the Great and his advisors, and in order to delineate the messages that were propagated by the royal court.
The talk will be followed by dinner at Faculty House. All those who wish to dine with the speaker after the talk must make reservations by contacting the rapporteur of the seminar, Jeffrey Wayno, either by phone or by email no later than one week before the talk. Dinner is a fixed buffet menu, which costs $25 per person. Payment can be made to the rapporteur by cash or check, although checks are strongly preferred. Please make checks out to “Columbia University.” We look forward to seeing you on January 30. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or if I can be of any assistance.