Sophie Jordan

My research currently focuses on late medieval understandings of cultural mixedness under Ottoman rule. As the Ottoman empire expanded Westwards across part of the Balkans, new socio-cultural identities were shaped which left an undeniable mark on this region. I am analysing the attempts of German-speaking travellers to describe the population groups which emerged in this way during the 15th and 16th centuries. Reflecting on what they saw and relating it to the religious and political turmoil underway in the Holy Roman Empire, these travellers’ accounts offer a rare insight into the involved process of rethinking foreign identities.

I completed my B.A. and M.St. in German at the University of Oxford, with a year studying at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg. My M.St. dissertation engaged with the debate on pre-modern concepts of race, by looking at blackness as a factor of integration at the court of King Arthur in the Middle Dutch romance Moriaen. I also hold an M.A. in Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester, which allowed me to broaden my disciplinary and methodological horizons. Continuing my work on the perception of difference, I focused on the various definitions of history which appear in contemporary conversations about Indigenous history education in North American public schools.

I grew up in Strasbourg, on the Franco-German border, and enjoy deciphering unfamiliar dialects as well as going on long hikes