Description
Book SynopsisChallenging the traditional conception of medieval Europe as insular and xenophobic, Shirin A. Khanmohamadi's In Light of Another's Word looks to early ethnographic writers who were surprisingly aware of their own otherness, especially when faced with the far-flung peoples and cultures they meant to describe.
Trade Review"Khanmohamadi has rendered a valuable service to scholars and students of medieval travel writing, human geography, and cultural contact. She presents a clear-sighted and well-articulated vision here of the distinctive generic and discursive characteristics of medieval empirical ethnography." * Marianne O'Doherty,
American Historical Review *
"Extremely well written, lucidly exposed, Shirin Khanmohamadi's argument is carried by a graceful narrative and powerful close readings spanning three centuries and ranging from one edge of the known world, twelfth-century insular Britain and Wales, to the other extreme, thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Mongolia and Cathay. . . . A required point of reference in medieval studies and an indispensable classroom text." *
The Medieval Review *
"In prose regularly both fresh and elegant, Shirin A. Khanmohamadi transforms our understanding of the formal features of medieval ethnography, and offers an exciting account of the diverse ways ethnography can work." * Patricia Clare Ingham, Indiana University *
"Shirin Khanmohamadi persuasively demonstrates the distinctiveness of medieval (versus antique and early modern) representations of non-European others. Shaped by a scrupulous attention to relative chronology and historical context, her analyses combine a sure-handed command of critical and theoretical discourses with nuanced close readings. In lucid prose, she makes a strong case for the variety and flexibility of Latin Europe's encounter with various non-Christian others across three languages and over three centuries.
In Light of Another's Word is destined to become an indispensable entry in the bibliography of 'postcolonial' medievalism." * Sharon Kinoshita, University of California, Santa Cruz *
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Conquest, Conversion, Crusade, Salvation: The Discourse of Anthropology and Its Uses in the Medieval Period 2. Subjective Beginnings: Autoethnography and the Partial Gazes of Gerald of Wales 3. Writing Ethnography "In the Eyes of the Other": William of Rubruck's Mission to Mongolia 4. Casting a "Sideways Glance" at the Crusades: The Voice of the Other in Joinville's Vie de Saint Louis 5. Dis-Orienting the Self: The Uncanny Travels of John Mandeville Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments
