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Birkbeck Medieval Seminar 2025: "Medieval Economic Imaginaries"

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Venue: Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square

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One of the most exciting developments in medieval studies has been the global turn. This has meant many different things to different people: new comparative possibilities, new studies of cutural interconnectedness, new attempts to understand 'global' economic patterns in the period from around 500-1500. In the 2025 Birkbeck Medieval Seminar, we bring some of these strands together to think about 'medieval economic imaginaries' from a global perspective.

In 2018, Dr Simon Yarrow suggested that thinking about 'economic imaginaries' could help relativise modern western understandings of political economy, and help us see the global middle ages as more than simply a precursor to modern globalization. At this year's seminar, Birkbeck's Dr Alicia Smith and Dr Nick Evans, together with Dr Alexandra Vukovich from KCL, will be picking up the conversation with Dr Yarrow. We will think comparatively about medieval attitudes to wealth, exchange and production by looking at everything from narratives about a sex worker turned saint, to accounts of medieval 'socially distanced' trade. Might we have something to learn from how medieval people thought cross-culturally about economic practices and institutions? 

Come and join us for a whole day of discussion, hosted by Birkbeck's Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Worlds.

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