Marginal Figures in the Global Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Book excerpt: The essays in this collection explore the motives and methods of marginalization throughout pre-modern Europe, Japan, the Ottoman Empire, and areas that are now Mexico, Iran, Peru, Syria, and Costa Rica. The authors offer a rich variety of perspectives on precarity and privilege, resistance and hybridity, they unpack the intersections of power, tradition, and difference, and they examine the relationship of marginality to both violence and creativity not only in the global Middle Ages and Renaissance but also in our present moment. While deepening readers' understanding of our antecedents, the collection illuminates the contemporary urgency of being 'ethically awake to the needs, sufferings, sorrows, and dignity of others around the globe'.