Ionuț-Alexandru Tudorie, born in Constanța, Romania, in 1977. Ph.D. from the University of Bucharest. Lecturer of Church History/Byzantine Studies at the University of Bucharest.
Mellon Fellow (1 February 2014 – 30 June 2014)
WESTERN TRAVEL DESCRIPTIONS DURING THE SECOND HALF OF THE 16TH CENTURY AND THE MENTAL IMAGERY OF EASTERN CHRISTIANITY
Research Question
How does the description of the limitations of the other highlights de facto the authors’ own limitations?
Project Description
My research will address the way in which the images of Eastern Christianity are constructed in the diaries and travel accounts of Western visitors to the Ottoman Empire, especially Constantinople. The Western mental pictures of the Eastern Christians under the Ottoman rule are deeply marked by prejudice, clichés and stereotypes. However, they also constitute an involuntary self-representation of the culture of the author, as mirrored by the other. In their travel descriptions, the authors describe the landscape, the towns, the landmarks, the harbors, the customs and religion of the newly-visited territories. The novelty of this investigation lies in my attempt to go beyond the structured approach to otherness, which is focused on social-cultural elements, and instead dwell on religion and the investigation of the other’s beliefs.
Selected Publications
1) De la Reformă la unitatea vizibilă deplină: dialogul teologic dintre anglicani şi luterani [From Reformation to Full Visible Unity: Theological Dialogue between Anglicans and Lutherans], coll. Studia Oecumenica 6, Sibiu: Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2012.
2) “Alexander Alexandrovich Vasiliev (1867-1953) – the Patriarch of the Byzantine Studies”, Byzantinoslavica, LXX (2012), pp. 283-323.
3) “Old and New in the Byzantine Imperial Coronation in the 13th Century”, in: Ostkirchliche Studien, 60 (2011), 1, pp. 69-109.