Touching Things in the Middle Ages

FRIDAY 12 April

1-1:45 pm

Preliminary Considerations: Things with ‘Magical’ Meaning: an Approach, by Gert Melville (Director, Research Center for the Comparative History of Religious Orders, Dresden)

Response by Christopher Ocker (Graduate Theological Union and San Francisco Theological Seminary)

1:450-2:45 pm

“St. Michael in Hildesheim: Magic Machine?,” by Bruno Klein (Art History, Technical University Dresden)

Response by Henrike Lange (Art History, Berkeley)

2:45-3:45

“The Magical Power of the Object. Prayer Aids as Amplifiers of Communication,” by Mirko Breitenstein (Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig and Research Center for the Comparative History of Religious Orders, Dresden)

Response by Fiona Griffiths (History, Stanford)

3:45-4:00 Break

4:00-5:00

The Etymologiae in Late Medieval England: Time, History, and the Phenomenology of the Codex, by Bernardo S. Hinojosa (Ph.D. Candidate, English & Medieval Studies, UC Berkeley)

Response by Susanna Elm (History, Berkeley)

4:45-5:45

“Inappropriate Touching in Mendicant Controversy,” by Christopher Ocker (Graduate Theological Union and San Francisco Theological Seminary)

Response by Gert Melville (Dresden)

7 pm Dinner

SATURDAY

9:00-10:00

“The Agency of the Magical. Play and the Hermeneutics of Things,” by Jörg Sonntag (Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig and Research Center for the Comparative History of Religious Orders, Dresden

Response by Maureen Miller (History, Berkeley)

10:00-10:15 Break

10:15-11:15

"The Emancipation of Touch in Late Medieval Theories of Contemplation," by Niklaus Largier (Department of German, UC Berkeley)

Response by Marisa Galvez (French, Stanford)

11:15-Noon

Concluding Remarks, by everyone

Summaries and précises