Suzanne Conklin Akbari
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Suzanne Conklin Akbari is Professor of Medieval Studies in the School of Historical Studies. She has expanded the range and methods of exploring texts from the Middle Ages, pushing the boundaries of traditional readings and exploring shared histories. Her research has traced the evolving relationship between sight and knowledge as manifested in a range of poetic texts, explored the relationship between Islam and Christianity, challenged the notion of medieval European literature’s insularity, and highlighted the influence of Arabic poetry, music, and philosophy.
Akbari is deeply interested in the relationship of the local and the global, especially as understood through the work of those who contribute to the field of Indigenous Studies, both academic scholars and traditional knowledge-keepers.
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- Imagining Islam: The Role of Images in Medieval Depictions of Muslims(1998)Akbari, Suzanne Conklin
35 10 - Making Substantial Connections: A Critical Appreciation of Sheila Delany(2006)Akbari, Suzanne Conklin
6 - Shaping Knowledge: The Movement from Verse to Prose in the Allegories of Christine de Pizan(Boydell and Brewer, 2008)Akbari, Suzanne Conklin
33 9 - Between Diaspora and Conquest: Norman Assimilation in Petrus Alfonsi’s Disciplina Clericalis and Marie de France’s Fables(Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)Akbari, Suzanne ConklinThis chapter examines Norman identity and diaspora comparatively, throught texts composed in Sicily and England.
4 3 - The Object of Devotion: Fundamentalist Perspectives on the Medieval Past(2010)Akbari, Suzanne Conklin
4 2 - The Ends of the Body: Identity and Community in Medieval Culture(University of Toronto Press, 2012)
;Akbari, Suzanne ConklinRoss, Jill64 11 - Erasing the Body: History and Memory in Medieval Siege Poetry.(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012)Akbari, Suzanne Conklin
54 2 - The Persistence of Philology: Language and Connectivity in the Mediterranean(University of Toronto Press, 2013)Akbari, Suzanne Conklin
33 18 - Embodying the Historical Moment: Tombs and Idols in the Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César(Duke University Press, 2014)Akbari, Suzanne Conklin
5 - The Non-Christians of Piers Plowman(Cambridge University Press, 2014)Akbari, Suzanne Conklin
38 13 - Ekphrasis and Stasis in the Allegories of Christine de Pizan(Ohio State University Press, 2015)Akbari, Suzanne Conklin
22 6 - Sight Lines: The Mirror of the Mind in Medieval Poetics(Brepols Publishing, 2016)Akbari, Suzanne Conklin
14 10 - AHR Conversation: Walls, Borders, and Boundaries in World History(American Historical Review (Oxford University Press), 2017)
;Akbari, Suzanne Conklin ;Herzog, Tamar ;Jütte, Daniel ;Nightingale, Carl ;Rankin, WilliamWeitzberg, Keren7 4 - Modeling Medieval World Literature(Middle Eastern Literatures (Routledge), 2017)Akbari, Suzanne ConklinThis article describes three models for integrating the study of medieval texts within world literature. First, “Mediterraneans” point to sites where diverse cosmopolitan regional centers are connected by a sea. Second, “distant reading” is deployed in tracing literary forms and themes over long periods of time and across cultures within medieval literature. Third, and most extensively, a model based on “moving things” is developed to track the ways in which objects and persons are used in medieval texts to precipitate cultural and social change on a large scale. Following the traveling objects in The Canterbury Tales, The Book of John Mandeville, the Kebra Nagast, and the Travels of Ibn Battuta, the article presents new patterns of conceptualizing literary history.
17 7 - Seeing Jerusalem: Schematic Views of the Holy City, 1100-1300(Manchester University Press, 2018)
;Akbari, Suzanne ConklinMittman, Asa Simon20 6 - Where is Medieval Ethiopia? Mapping Ethiopic Studies within Medieval Studies(Getty Publications, 2019)Akbari, Suzanne Conklin
18 56 - The Gift of Shame(postmedieval (Springer), 2020)Akbari, Suzanne ConklinThis short confession looks back at the confessional mode of a 2009 article, ‘The Object of Devotion,’ on the impact of religious orientation on my scholarly formation, before turning to a different sort of self-examination: the moment of shame that is at once a source of pain and a generous gift. The inventory offered here concerns not religious orientation but the shame that arises from being wrong. It also casts light on changes that have come to our profession, where racist structures of thought and their administrative and social manifestations have become more visible than before. It’s not that our work environment has changed; rather, the assumptions that were there all along have become visible, and recognizing them – and responding to them – has become imperative. In this way, when I make a confession, and talk about my own shame, it’s in part the product of my own experience, but it is also the product of our common situation. This confession also looks forward to the fruitful outcomes of this experience, including collaborative workshops on indigenous pedagogy, on the role of indigenous story, and on the stories we tell about the land.
15 6 - One Loveheart at a Time: The Language of Emoji and the Building of Affective Community in the Digital Medieval Studies Environment(dhq (The Alliance of Digital Humanities Organization and The Association for Computers and the Humanities), 2020)
;Akbari, Suzanne Conklin ;Evalyn, Lawrence ;Henderson, C.E.M. ;King, Julia ;Lockhart, JessicaMitchell, LauraThe Old Books, New Science (OBNS) Lab began using Slack in May 2016 to facilitate the work of a diverse research group at the University of Toronto. Yet the OBNS Slack does not simply facilitate scholarly communication: it also serves as a powerful affective network, bringing together scholars in new and sometimes unexpected configurations. The affective language of emoji is fundamental to the growth of this community. Lab members coin new emoji that are taken up by the community eagerly, many of which are meaningful only within the OBNS environment. It is common to reference Slack emoji in in-person conversation; equally, the OBNS Slack is often home to advising sessions or meetings that in another workplace would take place face-to-face. In this way, the online environment of Slack and the in-person environment of the lab are mutually constitutive. Such usage of Slack may, however, also have a dark side: by celebrating affective community in the workspace, what happens to the distinction between home and office, and consequent erosion of leisure time? We consider whether the affective practices of the OBNS Slack might allow personal and professional boundaries to be blurred in such a way as to prioritize the personal.15 12