International Medieval Society, Paris
Société Internationale des Médiévistes, Paris

Symposium 2007 Abstracts

The renowned historian of medieval religious art, Émile Mâle, had two readers, equally renowned in their own domains, Henry Adams and Marcel Proust. Mâle was specifically a historian of iconography, the actual artistic expression of ideas. Adams was a historian of American politics and culture of the nineteenth century. Proust was, of couse, a novelist of uniquely acute cultural and psychological sensitivity. These three men represent three ways of studying life in medieval period. We can show that Mâle’s goal was faire de l’histoire in the contemporary sense, that Adams’s goal was to produce an interpretation of medieval religion and culture for personal/artistic reasons, and that Proust’s goal was faire de l’histoire to provide a setting for fictional events and characters. These goals can best be clarified in light of a specific discussion of "faire de l’histoire" in recent historiographical volumes of the Que sais-je series, and the discussion of "objectivity" in the recent run of articles in History and Theory. A summary review of such discussions will facilitate provisional definition of Émile Mâle as medievalist, Henry Adams as medievalismist, Marcel Proust as a combination of the two, and point up the explanatory value of these labels.