In Light of Another's Word

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Challenging the view of medieval Europe as insular and xenophobic, Shirin A. Khanmohamadi's work examines early ethnographic writers who recognized their own otherness when encountering diverse cultures. Authors like William of Rubruck among the Mongols, "John Mandeville" cataloging global wonders, Geraldus Cambrensis describing twelfth-century Welsh manners, and Jean de Joinville recounting encounters with Saracens during the Seventh Crusade demonstrate a remarkable ability to understand the perspectives of the very strangers they describe. Khanmohamadi highlights a unique late medieval ethnographic poetics characterized by openness to alternative voices and the inherent threat such openness posed to Europe's religious and cultural orthodoxies. The narratives reveal the voices of medieval Europe's others, showcasing the disorientation and destabilization experienced by these early ethnographic writers. Positioned at the crossroads of medieval studies, anthropology, and visual culture, this work innovatively expands the study of medieval travel writing into poetics, ethnographic form into the premodern context, and early visual culture into the ethnographic encounter.