Seminar 19 - Margins, Maps, and Monsters: Negotiating Borders in the “Wonders of the East” – Elisa Ramazzina

We are pleased to invite you to the 19th session of the Entangled Histories Seminar Series, featuring Dr Elisa Ramazzina (University of Insubria).

Title: "Margins, Maps, and Monsters: Negotiating Borders in the “Wonders of the East”"

Abstract: This paper explores the depiction of borders in the medieval versions of the Wonders of the East produced in England and its associated world maps, particularly the Cotton Map and the Hereford Mappa Mundi, among others. The study examines how monstrosity was used to define, reinforce, and at times destabilise cultural and geographical boundaries.

Monstrous beings, such as Blemmyae, gold-digging ants, and cannibals, appear at the world’s margins, reflecting early medieval anxieties about the unknown and the foreign. Through an integrated analysis of both text and image, with a particular focus on the Red Sea as a pivotal transitional space, this paper shows how medieval writers and artists employed monstrosity to construct spaces of exclusion, linking physical deformity with moral deviance, sin, and heresy.

Drawing on the work of Asa Simon Mittman, Susan Kim, and Michael Camille, the paper highlights how boundaries in these sources function not only as spatial divisions but as conceptual tools for managing “otherness”. Framing devices serve to contain monstrous bodies, but also reveal the instability and porousness of such containment at the edge of the known world.

Speaker Biographical Note: Dr Elisa Ramazzina is a Research Fellow at the University of Insubria, Italy. She holds a PhD in Germanic Philology (Old English Language and Literature) from the University of Pavia. Her research is fundamentally interdisciplinary, bridging philology, medical humanities, and cultural history, with particular expertise in border studies and monster studies.

She previously served as a Lecturer and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast and collaborated on the ERC-funded "CLASP" project at the University of Oxford. Her scholarship encompasses Old and Middle English, Old and Middle High German, Anglo-Latin, and Medieval Italian literature. Elisa is also one of the co-editors of the four-volume series "The Elements in the Medieval World: Interdisciplinary Perspectives" (Brill). Her work integrates the study of language and literature with broader questions in cosmology, cartography, and the intersections between the human and natural worlds.

Date: April 29, 2026

Time: 5:00 PM (Rome Time) / 4:00 PM (London Time) 

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Format: Online (Zoom)

Admission Reminder: To ensure a safe scholarly environment, advance registration is mandatory. Please note that your Zoom display name must match your full registered name (first and last name). Participants using nicknames or initials will not be admitted from the waiting room.