Interrogating the ¿Germanic¿

A Category and its Use in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-3-11-069976-0
Verlag: De Gruyter

Buch, Englisch, Band 123, 270 Seiten, HC runder Rücken kaschiert, Format (B × H): 175 mm x 246 mm, Gewicht: 712 g

Reihe: Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde

Any reader of scholarship on the ancient and early medieval world will be familiar with the term 'Germanic', which is frequently used as a linguistic category, ethnonym, or descriptive identifier for a range of forms of cultural and literary material. But is the term meaningful, useful, or legitimate? The term, frequently applied to peoples, languages, and material culture found in non-Roman north-western and central Europe in classical antiquity, and to these phenomena in the western Roman Empire’s successor states, is often treated as a legitimate, all-encompassing name for the culture of these regions. Its usage is sometimes intended to suggest a shared social identity or ethnic affinity among those who produce these phenomena. Yet, despite decades of critical commentary that have highlighted substantial problems, its dominance of scholarship appears not to have been challenged. This edited volume, which offers contributions ranging from literary and linguistic studies to archaeology, and which span from the first to the sixteenth centuries AD, examines why the term remains so pervasive despite its problems, offering a range of alternative interpretative perspectives on the late and post-Roman worlds.

Zielgruppe

Researchers (Late Antique/Early Medieval History and Archaeology,

Autoren/Hrsg.

Harland, James M.

Friedrich, Matthias

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien Nationalismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Geschichte der klassischen Antike Spätantike
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Historiographie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Deutsche Geschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Matthias Friedrich, Universität Wien, Österreich; James Harland, Universität Tübingen.