Mirko Sardelic
The University of Western Australia, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Honorary Research Fellow
Mirko Sardelic, Ph.D, is a historian of medieval and early modern cross-cultural exchange, especially between the Mediterranean world and Eurasian steppe. He is a Research Associate at the Department of Historical Research of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Zagreb), and also an Honorary Research Fellow at the ARC Centre for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100-1800), based at the University of Western Australia (2018-2021). Very much interested in the history of emotions, he is Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Emotions in Cross-Cultural Exchange, based in Croatia.
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The essay suggests that a strategic juxtaposition of Renaissance ships and cities is useful: ships are smaller, but no less complex cultural units than cities. The ship has almost all the characteristics of a city, with its “urbanistic” solutions for the infrastructure, working and private spaces for officials and crew, and supplies for all of their needs. In addition, this microcosm needed to be mobile in a very unstable medium.
Ships connected and separated people, gave them new experiences, new ideas, and new identities; they were the most active agents of cross-cultural exchange in both peaceful and confrontational contacts. The mobility and confinement made them a highly dramatic and intense site of exchange.
By exploring the ship as a complex and mobile microcultural system, this essay aims to propose a new avenue for inquiry into cross-cultural exchanges in the history of art and architecture, cultural history, and the history of emotions in the Renaissance Mediterranean.
In order to interpret the literature of past times, scholars and students should study the elements of the contemporary culture within which the writings were created. This is particularly important when analysing emotional threads in texts, because culture shapes the way its members experience and express emotions. Even within the same culture, different times or circumstances lead to different ideas on which emotions are approved or supported, and which are regulated or suppressed. Different cultures have different views on the preferable display, duration, or intensity of certain emotions. Also, vocabularies of different languages show variations in etymology and number of lexical entries for a specific emotional state.
Technical (specialised) terminology needs to be precise; therefore, scientists put continuous effort towards keeping it up-to-date and well-defined. On the other hand, everyday language supports swift communication, and consequently uses words with less distinction, sometimes even interchangeably – especially for emotional states. In this paper, as an example, the author discusses three aspects of the (sometimes interchangeable) use of the words envy and jealousy – firstly, in the everyday language of grammar school students; secondly, in different Slavic languages; and thirdly, in literary examples.
In the last part, the author analyses intense emotional elements in a famous 17th- century South Slavic folk ballad, Asanaginica. A conflict between a married couple arising from his pain caused by a battle wound, and her shame in not visiting him – culminates in a divorce, followed by her tragic death. The difficulty posed in interpreting the protagonist’s shame is the fact that the social norms of this (Muslim/Christian) border society were too well-known to audiences at the time to be explained within a text which is already a concentrated matter of sources on at least two important issues: the status of women in this society, and the (im)possibilities of expression of their emotional life.
This imaginary is the product of an accumulated culturally-processed emotional response to newcomers from the Eurasian Steppe who were often perceived as either a severe threat or as powerful military allies. The process of constructing such an image of the Eurasian nomads might seem to be a simple and natural one; however, one must not oversimplify its complexity. The reconstruction of this imagery is a joint effort made by several disciplines. This overview is intended to give the reader a glimpse into the perspectives of imagology, social psychology, cross-cultural history, and the history of emotions.
sources related to southern Pannonia, the first part of which
is dealt with by Alka Domić Kunić in this volume.
Talks by Mirko Sardelic
News by Mirko Sardelic
The essay suggests that a strategic juxtaposition of Renaissance ships and cities is useful: ships are smaller, but no less complex cultural units than cities. The ship has almost all the characteristics of a city, with its “urbanistic” solutions for the infrastructure, working and private spaces for officials and crew, and supplies for all of their needs. In addition, this microcosm needed to be mobile in a very unstable medium.
Ships connected and separated people, gave them new experiences, new ideas, and new identities; they were the most active agents of cross-cultural exchange in both peaceful and confrontational contacts. The mobility and confinement made them a highly dramatic and intense site of exchange.
By exploring the ship as a complex and mobile microcultural system, this essay aims to propose a new avenue for inquiry into cross-cultural exchanges in the history of art and architecture, cultural history, and the history of emotions in the Renaissance Mediterranean.
In order to interpret the literature of past times, scholars and students should study the elements of the contemporary culture within which the writings were created. This is particularly important when analysing emotional threads in texts, because culture shapes the way its members experience and express emotions. Even within the same culture, different times or circumstances lead to different ideas on which emotions are approved or supported, and which are regulated or suppressed. Different cultures have different views on the preferable display, duration, or intensity of certain emotions. Also, vocabularies of different languages show variations in etymology and number of lexical entries for a specific emotional state.
Technical (specialised) terminology needs to be precise; therefore, scientists put continuous effort towards keeping it up-to-date and well-defined. On the other hand, everyday language supports swift communication, and consequently uses words with less distinction, sometimes even interchangeably – especially for emotional states. In this paper, as an example, the author discusses three aspects of the (sometimes interchangeable) use of the words envy and jealousy – firstly, in the everyday language of grammar school students; secondly, in different Slavic languages; and thirdly, in literary examples.
In the last part, the author analyses intense emotional elements in a famous 17th- century South Slavic folk ballad, Asanaginica. A conflict between a married couple arising from his pain caused by a battle wound, and her shame in not visiting him – culminates in a divorce, followed by her tragic death. The difficulty posed in interpreting the protagonist’s shame is the fact that the social norms of this (Muslim/Christian) border society were too well-known to audiences at the time to be explained within a text which is already a concentrated matter of sources on at least two important issues: the status of women in this society, and the (im)possibilities of expression of their emotional life.
This imaginary is the product of an accumulated culturally-processed emotional response to newcomers from the Eurasian Steppe who were often perceived as either a severe threat or as powerful military allies. The process of constructing such an image of the Eurasian nomads might seem to be a simple and natural one; however, one must not oversimplify its complexity. The reconstruction of this imagery is a joint effort made by several disciplines. This overview is intended to give the reader a glimpse into the perspectives of imagology, social psychology, cross-cultural history, and the history of emotions.
sources related to southern Pannonia, the first part of which
is dealt with by Alka Domić Kunić in this volume.
7 DECEMBER 2021 4.30 PM CET
LINK TO LECTURE
https://oeaw-ac-at.zoom.us/j/92837010542?pwd=WC9URnZwanpDNHNWOEhPYWVqOVc0QT09
Passcode: hNk8eX
Abstract:
Culture refers to the repository of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitude, meanings, roles, relations, concepts of time and space (etc.) shared by a group of people. It is communication, the way of life, a collective programming that distinguishes the members of one group from another. It also affects how the members of the group experience and express emotions, favouring some and suppressing other emotional states. Since cultures are adaptive and change in response to environmental and social challenges, their influence on emotional experience of its members changes and it is different across different periods of time. Therefore, the experience of emotions is not just different across cultures, but also within a single culture in different historical periods. Jealousy and envy are considered as complex emotions shaped by social interaction and cultural models. The presentation focuses on some aspects of the discussion on the similarities (in function, motivational framework…) and differences between the two emotions, mostly from the perspective of (cross-)cultural history, linguistics, and the history of emotions. The analyses will include historical and contemporary examples from Europe, China, and Iran. The presenter will be thankful for any thoughts and contributions from the distinguished audience, as such complex comparative research most often extends beyond the linguistic and cross-cultural competences of individual researchers.