Vanina Kopp
My just finished second book project (Habilitation, Universität Münster, 2020) ”Sacred, Serious, Subversive - Literary Games and Poetic Competitions in Medieval Sociability" investigates in a historical perspective the development, cultural performance, and social functions of literary games in French sources and societies from the ninth to the sixteenth century. Throughout the Middle Ages, literary games topics were among the favourite pastimes, but used in different contexts and for different purposes. For example, debating love topics in mock dialogues and debates was a part of courtly education and helped to shape community feeling, subvert values or transmit codes. In urban centres, literary competitions were integrated into devotional practices and confraternal sociability. The practice of these games and love debates is preserved in manuscript collections used for education and manuals, as well as in writing by poets or chronists, and reports of literary pastime and their use. I also analyse archival sources like account books of societies integrating literary games, allowing thus to deeply root those games in a historical perspective. This project examines the use of poetic games in different settings (courtly, urban, monastic), discusses them as a performative endeavour, and anlyses its effects on society in medieval France.
My first monograph, taken from my dissertation on book history and reading culture, the Louvre library of the French Kings in the late Middle Ages, is now open access: https://perspectivia.net/receive/pnet_mods_00001079 .
I am currently Privatdozentin and working as a full professor in interim (Vertretungsprofessorin) in Constance and Passau. Prior to that, I have been teaching medieval history courses on undergraduate and graduate level in different universites in Germany (Bielefeld, Freiburg, Cologne, Münster, Trier), and I led a Franco-German research group on games and competition in medieval sociability in Paris. Other work experience and positions have brought me to universities in France as well as Canada and Senegal.
My other research focuses are on the history of medieval science, historiography of the 19th and 20th century, intercultural exchanges between east and west, the global Middle Ages, migration and exile, as well as gender studies.
My first monograph, taken from my dissertation on book history and reading culture, the Louvre library of the French Kings in the late Middle Ages, is now open access: https://perspectivia.net/receive/pnet_mods_00001079 .
I am currently Privatdozentin and working as a full professor in interim (Vertretungsprofessorin) in Constance and Passau. Prior to that, I have been teaching medieval history courses on undergraduate and graduate level in different universites in Germany (Bielefeld, Freiburg, Cologne, Münster, Trier), and I led a Franco-German research group on games and competition in medieval sociability in Paris. Other work experience and positions have brought me to universities in France as well as Canada and Senegal.
My other research focuses are on the history of medieval science, historiography of the 19th and 20th century, intercultural exchanges between east and west, the global Middle Ages, migration and exile, as well as gender studies.
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Second Book / Habilitation by Vanina Kopp
Literary Games and Poetic Competitions
in Medieval Sociability
General Introduction: “All the world’s a stage…” Conceptualising New Approaches to Play and Games in Medieval Society
Part 1: Oral Transmissions and Cultural Transformations
1.1. Literary Games in the Carolingian Community: Generating a Group Spirit, Witty Wordplay on the Wondrous, and Understanding the Sacred Scriptures, ca. 700–850
1.2. Ludic Law: Transgressing and Strengthening Order, ca. 1100–1350
1.3. Mary, Queen of the Puy Play Community: Urban Poetic Competitions as Devotional Literary Games, ca. 1150–1350
Part Two: Codifying Rules and Norms
2.1. Of Kings and Queens: Literary Games Between Sociability and Education, ca. 1300–1400
2.2. Educative Games: Performance of Dialogues in Literary Games, ca. 1350–1400
2.3. Ludification and Normification: Towards a Social and Moral Didactic of Games, ca. 1300–1450
Part Three: Players and Institutionalised Play Communities
3.1. Literary Orders and Political Puy at the Paris Court: A Socio-Political Interpretation, ca. 1400–1450
3.2. Literary Games in Courtly Sociability and the Body Politic: A Cultural Interpretation, ca. 1400–1450
3.3. Urban Puys Between Distinction, Economy, and Spectacle: Literary, Visual, and Material Culture in Ludic Confraternities, ca. 1400–1700
General Conclusion: Game Over?
PhD Dissertation by Vanina Kopp
The monograph and several articles taken from the thesis were published in 2016.
Monograph by Vanina Kopp
1) Jacques Verger: Hommage d’ouvrages présentés en hommage lors des séances 2016 de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, http://www.aibl.fr/IMG/pdf/hommageaibl_vanina-kopp_jacques-verger_30-09-2016.pdf (in French)
2) Michael Brauer in: H-Soz-Kult, 05.10.2016, <www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/rezbuecher-25570>.
3) Heribert Müller, in: sehepunkte 17 (2017), Nr. 1 [15.01.2017], URL: http://www.sehepunkte.de/2017/01/28712.html .
4) Catherine König-Pralong, in: Revue de l'IFHA [Online], Online since 02 November 2017, URL : http://ifha.revues.org/8771 (French)
5) Ulrike Bauer-Eberhardt, in: Romanische Studien, http://blog.romanischestudien.de/louvrebibliothek/
6) Julia Bangert, in: Jahrbuch für Kommunikationsgeschichte 19 (2017), S. 153-154. http://www.steiner-verlag.de/fileadmin/Dateien/Steiner/Jahrbuch_JKG/9783515119757_r.pdf .
7) Konrad Stidl, in: B.I.T. online 20 (2017), S. 185 http://www.b-i-t-online.de/heft/2017-02-rezensionen.pdf .
8) Michiel Verweij, in: Das Mittelalter 23.1 (2018), S. 206f.
9) Ralf Lützelschwab, in: ZfG 66, 10 (2018), p. 866-869.
10) Georg Jostkleigrewe, in: ZHF 45 (2018), p. 15-17.
11) Martin Wagendorfer, in: Das Deutsche Archiv für die Erforschung des Mittelalters (2019), S. 658-659.
12) Christine Grafinger, in: Mediaevistik. Internationale Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Mittelalterforschung 30 (2017), S. 490-492.
Edited Volumes by Vanina Kopp
The volume contributes to reconstruction of medieval and early modern gaming culture through analysis of visual and material evidence.
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, games were not an idle pastime, but were in fact important tools for exploring, transmitting, enhancing, subverting, and challenging social practices and their rules. Their study, through both visual and material sources, offers a unique insight into medieval and early modern gaming culture, shedding light not only on why, where, when, with whom and in what conditions and circumstances people played games, but also on the variety of interpretations that they had of games and play. Representations of games, and of artefacts associated with games, also often served to communicate complex ideas on topics that ranged from war to love, and from politics to theology.
Table of Contents
Introduction — VANINA KOPP AND ELIZABETH LAPINA
Rhetoric and Reality in the Visual Culture of Medieval Celtic Board Games: Literary and Archaeological Evidence Combined — KATHERINE FORSYTH AND MARK A. HALL
‘Turne Over the Leef’: Games and Interpretation on Misericords — PAUL HARDWICK
Gambling Miners — LENA ASRIH AND JENNIFER GARNER
Chess and Cultural Crossings in Boccaccio — AKASH KUMAR
Visualizing Chess and Love in Les Eschéz d’Amours — DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN
Game as a Sign of Social Status: Backgammon in the Ottoman Literature and Visual Culture — TÜLÜN DEĞIRMENCI
Chess of the Gnostics: The Sufi Version of Snakes and Ladders in Turkey and India — İRVIN CEMIL SCHICK
Playthings: Ivory on Ivory — ELINA GERTSMAN
The Playing Eye: On the Transfer of Game-related Knowledge through Miniatures in Alfonso X’s Book of Games (1283/84) — MICHAEL A. CONRAD
Children’s Toys in Italy, 1350–1550 — ANNEMARIEKE WILLEMSEN
The Printed Book and the Visual Culture of Chess in the Late Middle Ages: William Caxton’s 1483 Edition of The Game and Playe of Chess — LOUISE FANG
Graffiti as Gaming: Vikings at Play in the Orkney Islands — JULIE MELL
Scratching the Surface: Graffiti Games in the Byzantine Empire — WALTER CRIST
This volume offers a particular focus onto the type of games that required little or no physical exertion and that, consequently, all people could enjoy, regardless of age, gender, status, occupation, or religion. The representations and artefacts discussed here by contributors, who come from varied disciplines including history, literary studies, art history, and archaeology, cover a wide geographical and chronological range, from Spain to Scandinavia to the Ottoman Turkey and from the early medieval period to the seventeenth century and beyond. Far from offering the ‘last word’ on the subject, it is hoped that this volume will encourage further studies.
Francesca Aceto, Vanina Kopp, Jeu, pédagogie et performance dans les sociétés médiévales/Play, pedagogy and performance in medieval societies, 94
Alessandra Rizzi, Educare col gioco/rieducare al gioco: predicatori e uomini di Chiesa fra medioevo ed età moderna, 97
Marie Anne Polo de Beaulieu, Jacques Berlioz, Les prédicateurs connaissaient-ils la notion de jeux éducatifs ? Enquête dans quelques collections de récits exemplaires (XIIIe-XVe siècle), 109
Iolanda Ventura, Curiosità, insegnamento e piacere nelle enciclopedie del Tardo Medioevo: il caso del Responsorium curiosorum attribuito a Corrado di Halberstadt, 127
Vanina Kopp, « Jeux et esbatemens aucunement plaisans pour avoir contenance et maniere de parler ». Les recueils de demandes d’amour comme manuels éducatifs, 143
Darwin Smith, Aspects de l’écriture dramatique en France au XVe siècle : fil sonore, mime, polytopie et mass media, 157
Francesca Aceto, Vanina Kopp, Entre didactique et ludique. Essais d’une approche historique/Teaching and Play. A historical approach, 106
Noëlle-Laetitia Perret, La place du jeu dans l’éducation du prince d’après Gilles de Rome et son traducteur Guillaume (XIIIe-XIVe siècle), 109
Sophie Caflisch, Language Immersion through Movement Games and Play in Late Medieval Europe, 117
Ilaria Taddei, Jouer dans la cité des humanistes. Les confréries de jeunesse à Florence au XVe siècle, 126
Francesca Aceto, « Aguzzar l’ingegno dei giovani ». Jeux, mathématiques et violences symboliques au Quattrocento, 135
Abstract:
""Nicht erst seit dem Einsturz des Historischen Archivs der Stadt Köln sind Archive und ihre Rolle als Träger von Erinnerung, Repräsentation, Wissenskonstruktion und Herrschaftspraxis von Interesse. Die Autorinnen und Autoren beleuchten diese Zusammenhänge mithilfe eines erweiterten Archivbegriffs, der Akten, Sammlungen in Bibliotheken und Museen, aber auch Diskurse umfasst.
15 Beiträge, 11. Abb.
252 Seiten.""
Articles by Vanina Kopp