A Princeton University professor will discuss the impact a confederation of Germanic tribes during the early Middle Ages had—and continues to have—on Western Europe during a lecture at 3:30 p.m. Monday, March 28.
Helmut Reimitz will give a talk titled “Romanitas after Rome: On the Use and Abuse of Roman History in the Early Medieval West” in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of John C. Hodges Library, 1015 Volunteer Blvd. His lecture is free and open to the public.
Reimitz is a professor of history at Princeton University. His work focuses on late antiquity and early medieval Europe. His recent book History, Frankish identity and the Framing of Western Ethnicity, 550-850, explores the history of Frankish identity in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages as a window into the formation of a distinctively Western conception of ethnicity.
In his lecture, Reimitz will explore how the legacy of the Roman past greatly influenced the development of the most successful post-Roman kingdom in western Europe, the Frankish Merovingian kingdom in Gaul. Reimitz’s lecture will illustrate how Roman culture, institutions, and traditions continue to shape the diverse society of the post-Roman world. He will also focus on Bishop Gregory’s The Ten Books of Histories, which is intended to serve as a historical guide on building a post-Roman future from the legacy of the kingdom.
The remaining UT Humanities Center visiting scholar lectures are:
April 7—John Bryant, professor of English, Hofstra University, “Big Data, Small Data: Melville and the Humanities as Fluid Texts”
April 18—Barbara Savage, Geraldine Segal Professor of American Social Thought, Department of Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania, “Merze Tate: Cosmopolitan Woman, Diplomatic Historian, World Traveler”
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CONTACT:
Joan Murray (865-974-4222, jmurra10@utk.edu)