Charlemagne’s Mediterranean Empire - A talk by Bernard Bachrach April 7, 2011

Opening address for the conference Identity in the Mediterranean World: From the Middle Ages to Today.

Bernard Bachrach is a professor of History at the University of Minnesota. Professor Bachrach is well known for his research in early medieval Europe and is the editor and co-founding editor of Medieval Prosopography, as well as the founding editor of Res Militaris. Among his many publications are State-Building in Medieval France: Studies in Early Angevin History (1995), Pirenne and Charlemagne (1998), and Fulk Nerra - the Neo Roman Consul: A Political Biography of the Angevin Count (987-1040) (1993).

This conference focuses on constructions of identities in the Mediterranean world from the Middle Ages to the present. By identities we refer both to self-defined cultural identities and identities imposed by others; in each case, more than just ethnicity or race is involved, but also law, class, politics, religion, language, and culture.

Identity as a focus has never been more relevant than at the present moment with its increased movements of peoples as immigrants, refugees, evacuees, transplants. In the medieval and early modern eras, the Mediterranean was a multicultural environment where, for example, peoples of different religious backgrounds, Jews, Muslims, Christians, and others – each part of cultures internally diverse – interacted with one another frequently. In the late modern era the Mediterranean has become a vital space of transit for peoples from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia en route to Europe’s southern shores.

These 20th and 21st century migrations represent more than just a demographic reversal of earlier movements of peoples outward from Europe; they have raised questions about the extent to which many European societies have organized themselves in highly charged ways around a cultural myth that stresses the distinctions between Northern and Southern identities, between North and South.

Organized by the Institute for Advanced Study research collaborative, Identity in the Mediterranean World: From the Middle Ages to Today.

Official Website: http://z.umn.edu/MediterraneanIdentity