Marica COSTIGLIOLO

A look at the alterity between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. The perception of the other in some medieval and modern texts (1200-1600)

Uno sguardo sull’alterità tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna. La percezione dell’altro in alcuni testi medievali e moderni (1200-1600)

Published in Mirabilia Journal 34

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The concept of otherness is complex and layered. To understand how the Western world has received, rejected, or dominated the Other is crucial for the understanding of the construction of the Western cultural identity and for trying to find the motivations that have brought Europe to a politics of colonialism that has characterized social, economic, and political relations up to modern times. In this short essay I analyse some medieval and modern works to trace the textual strategies that testify the passage from the perception of difference as a possible source of threat, of danger, to its delegitimization to existence and consequently to the “justified” dominion over the other.