In this episode, art historians Sarah Frisbie and Rachel Quist discuss the advent and proliferation of relics and reliquaries in early Japan. Grappling with tensions between material and immaterial, visible and invisible, they discuss how these objects channeled and, indeed, became the Buddha, preserving the Buddha’s sanctity while also rendering Buddhism accessible across the Japanese archipelago.

For more information, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.

Sam Lasman (University of Oregon) and Samantha Pellegrino (University of Chicago) discuss monster-making in the medieval and modern Islamic world. Drawing on examples from Persian epic, modern Iranian cinema, ancient alchemy, and Iraqi fiction, they discuss encounters with supernatural beings, the creation of “artificial” life, and the politics of fantasy.

For more information, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.

In this episode, Dr. Paola Rodriguez takes us into Dante’s Divine Comedy, exploring four characters within their historical context. She examines them as micro-historical episodes used by Dante to criticize and denounce certain societal mores of his time. The theory of micro-history itself functions as a central device in Dante’s narratorial structuring, lending itself to the process of historical redressing of injustices.

For more information, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.