European Union Center Events

Multilingualism and Multimusicality in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean

Event Type

Lecture

Sponsor

Co-sponsored by the Program in Medieval Studies & the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, with generous support from: the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; the Center for Advanced Study; the European Union Center; the Center for African Studies; the School of Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics; the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory; the Department of Classics; the Department of Comparative and World Literature; the Department of French and Italian; the Department of History; the Department of Religion; and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

Location

210 Levis Faculty Center, 919 W. Illinois

Date

Feb 28, 2025   5:00 pm  

Speaker

Dwight Reynolds (Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara)

Views

3

People often sing in languages they cannot speak and often listen to songs in languages they do not understand.  A statement so obvious it hardly seems worth mentioning, except that we rarely ask what the implications of this common human behavior are for cultural interactions over time and space.  Through the process of contra factum, new words (often in a new language) are set to old melodies, and old texts are set to new melodies.  The result is a complex network of lyrics and melodies criss-crossing the Mediterranean, being performed by musicians, and for audiences, who may or may not understand the language of the words.  What can this fascinating situation tell us about cultural contacts and exchanges over time in the Mediterranean region?