Remembering Shared Rituals and Identities in the Medieval Mediterranean and Africa

The eastern Christian churches have a long and venerable tradition of text production and manuscript illumination. The papers in this session examine the extent to which the concept of memory shapes the construction of communal, local, and religious identity in the textual and visual components of medieval writings from Egypt, Syria, and Ethiopia. Central to this examination will be the role of memory in the process of copying, editing, and transferring ideas and iconographies in books and on monuments. The session seeks to shed light on how communities on the periphery of the Medieval world participated in a shared Eastern Christian heritage while remaining innovative and faithful to local concerns.