Medieval Colloquium, Tuesday, March 23, 4:00 p.m.
David Nirenberg, the Deborah R. and Edgar D. Jannotta Professor of Medieval History and Social Thought at the University of Chicago, will talk to us about "The Letter Kills: Dangers of "Judaism" in Medieval Poetry, Painting and Politics." Much of his work has focused on the ways in which Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures constitute themselves by inter-relating with or thinking about each other. His first book, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (1998), studied social interaction between the three groups within the context of Spain and France in order to understand the role of violence in shaping the possibilities for coexistence. His more recent work has taken a less anthropological and more hermeneutical approach, exploring the work that "Judaism," "Christianity," and "Islam" do as figures in each other's thought about the nature of language and the world. The talk will be held at 4:00 p.m. in 140 Nolte Center.