The international research network RELICS (Researchers of Latinate Identities, Cosmopolitanism, and the Schools) constitutes an open and multidisciplinary network of scholars who share an interest for the dynamic role of Latin as a cosmopolitan literary and cultural language in Europe and the world.
Scope of the project
We aim to look at Latin from a multidisciplinary perspective that involves literature as well as (historical) linguistics, history, archeology, art history, philosophy, religious studies, and theology.
RELICS’s scope of research is consciously holistic and aims to cover the breadth and diversity of the literary history of the entire Latinitas across traditional periodic demarcations (from antiquity until modern times) and across the boundaries of cultures, geographical territories, religions, and institutional or political constellations.
Latin as a cosmopolitan language and literature
The Latin literary tradition is not static. Often, it strikes us as evasive, and even contradictory or difficult to categorize. It exhibits a long-lived and varied literary production, demonstrating a rich palette of experimentation, alongside a seemingly contradictory return to and entrenchment in a classical tradition. Latin is also dynamic in that its inclusiveness as a lingua franca —its ability to connect and find common ground— existed alongside its recruitment for creating intellectual hierarchies and systems of domination.
The key terms in RELICS’s acronym are Latin and ‘cosmopolitanism,’ a term here designating the ability of Latin to create a common literary identity shared by people from different times, places, and linguistic backgrounds, sustained by a tradition of Latin schooling and a shared canon of classical texts. Early on in its history, Latin literary culture reached a ‘cosmopolitan’ status. It was first of all an acquired language, taught and learned by means of a normative literary tradition institutionalized in the Church, schools and courts. It also provided a common, authoritative written lingua franca in Europe. RELICS explores what ‘Latin cosmopolitanism’ is, both by 1) addressing what it means to characterize a historical literary culture as ‘cosmopolitan,’ but also by 2) addressing which characteristics are unique to ‘Latin cosmopolitanism’ and unique for Europe’s literary history.
So what is cosmopolitanism and how does it relate to similar methodological concepts such as ‘global’, ‘world literature,’ ‘transnationalism,’ or even ‘comparative literature’? Although cosmopolitanism is a contested term, we found it more applicable to Latin that the aforementioned alternatives. What strongly surfaces in this discussion of suitability of terms and concepts, is that different terms work better for different historical periods. ‘Transnationalism,’ for instance, with its explicit referral to the ‘nation state’, has an anachronistic ring to it when applied to premodern literatures. ‘World literature,’ coined by Goethe in the 19th century, grants an exceptionally strong (yet not restrictive) impact to industrial, technical and globalizing trends as perceived within literary circulation only from the advance of print onward. More than other concepts, cosmopolitanism has the advantage of cross-cultural applicability and timelessness, which makes it particularly apt for Latin.
Nevertheless, we realize ‘cosmopolitanism’ comes with its proper problems as well. While Latin exhibits a sense of inclusion —potentially anyone can become a ‘citizen of the world’ or ‘cosmos’— Latin simultaneously has a history of exclusion with imperial and prescriptive connotations. In that sense, Latin is not strictly a ‘world language,’ being very much a Christian, ‘sacred’ language centred in Western and Central Europe, spoken and written by a religious and intellectual elite. As such, it also served as a medium to encounter and translate other cultures and religions. A very early and striking example is that the 12th-century abbot Peter the Venerable, of the powerful abbey of Cluny, commissioned a team to translate the first Qu’ran known in Latin.
Precisely how to define this ‘Europe’ is part of the debate. Is Europe just a geographically demarcated continent, even when considering its boundaries are rather fluid? Or does it carry a metaphorical meaning, where ‘Europe’ embodies an entity defined by a common literary and intellectual culture? This not only raises the question what is meant by such notions as the “larger Western world,” but it also draws attention to what just falls outside of this world, in other words, regions of contact in which Latin’s hegemony is contested and where it encounters competing literatures. We are especially interested in the colonial history of Latin and its involvement in underpinning imperial ideologies.
Within Europe, Latin surely played a pivotal role in the history of European identity formation(s). On the one hand, it provides constancy and unity, through recurring patterns and topoi that allow us to speak of a Latin literary culture, even though Latin is not connected to a particular nation. At the same time, Latin literary culture is highly fragmented. Latin, a culture without a nation, offers in our view a grip to interpret a fragmented European history, where constancy with its fixed forms of tradition is challenged by continuous cultural negotiation. Appropriation of Latin does not unilaterally showcase the idea of an eternal European unity. It can be put to use for nationalistic agendas as well. One may consider what Latin becomes in the hands of Benito Mussolini in fascist Italy (1922–1943), but European history testifies to subtler and many more ways in which the power of Latin was used to legitimize various instances of rulership. Precisely because it can create the illusion of ahistorical sacrality and continuation, it can also act as a weapon. Abandonment of Latin, on the other hand, the option not to write in Latin but in the vernacular, for instance, can also send a powerful message concerning identity.
Diversity
No historical research is impartial and apolitical. Especially a subject like Latin has a long and specific history of conservatism, Eurocentrism, nationalism, and imperialism attached to its use. As researchers we are aware of the pitfalls this may cause. Here are a couple of ways in which we deal with these pitfalls.
First, we aim to avoid these by striving for diversity in the network and its organizational structure, bringing together scholars from different countries and specializing in different periods, geographical areas and languages. Moreover, the research network aims to go beyond the boundaries of research domains and academic disciplines, which have often been bound to chronological periods, languages or geographical areas. Central in this respect is the search for concepts that can capture the broader shifts and impulses within the literary and cultural landscape of Europe. These concepts offer not just the possibility to open a scientific debate beyond traditional academic boundaries, they are also valuable starting points to think with and reflect upon why we, as 21st-century scholars, precisely choose to work with these concepts. What is the relationship between our object of investigation and our method of investigation? What can we self-reflectively learn about ourselves as modern scholars by conceptually studying the European literary past?
Second, the main goal of RELICS is to enable inclusive dialogues and bring together a wide variety of voices. In our view, we should combine the engagement for scholarly diversity with pursuing a pro-active policy that aims for an inclusive working of the research group in all its facets, with regard to gender, ethnicity, religion, state of career, institution, and geographical representation. We structure our organizing board in a non-hierarchical and democratic way. Each of the teams has its own responsibilities. The task of the coordinators is to guarantee the group’s and journal’s general working. The other teams take care of the communication and the journal’s design and typesetting. Decisions about the journal’s issues and the activities of the research group are made by mutual agreement at board meetings. Internal discussion and debate are encouraged. Everybody should feel comfortable to formulate new ideas, suggestions or objections.
Third, with our journal JOLCEL, we continue to strive for an open and inclusive publication culture, by keeping our format of open access publishing, by creating a more diverse group of authors and reviewers, and by striving for a more accurate representation of the diversity of the academic world in our advisory and editorial boards.
Fourth, by making the Latin tradition our central research focus, we have chosen a perspective on literary history that is potentially very Western Eurocentric. We want to show more awareness of the conceptual and intellectual consequences of this choice. We should dare to question and deconstruct, at least to a certain extent, the idealized image of Latin literature that has often been promoted. We want to reflect more carefully on the ethical and ideological implications of our ambition ‘to bring literary traditions into dialogue with one another’, ‘to explore cultural interactions’, ‘to compare’, etc. These are no ‘neutral’ or ‘innocent’ methodological choices. There is always the risk of making one of the traditions the ‘absolute’ point of reference, the ‘dominant voice’ in the conversation, that overshadows and leads the attention away from the intrinsic qualities and characteristics of the other traditions. Which methodological strategies can enable us to keep a balance? How do we cope with and avoid the intellectual dangers related to the Eurocentric perspective that the study of Latin implies?
RELICS 