Barbarian - Modern Academia

Modern Academia

A famous quote from anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss says: "The barbarian is the one who believes in barbary", a meaning like his metaphor in Race et histoire ("Race and history", UNESCO, 1952), that two cultures are like two different trains crossing each other: each one believes it has chosen the good direction. A broader analysis reveals that neither party "chooses" their direction, but that their "brutish" behaviors have formed out of necessity, being entirely dependent on and hooked to their surrounding geography and circumstances of birth.

Although some terms in academia do go out of style, such as "Dark Ages", the term Barbarian is in full common currency among all mainstream medieval scholars and is not out of style or outdated, though a disclaimer is often felt to be needed, as when Ralph W. Mathisen prefaces a discussion of barbarian bishops in Late Antiquity, "It should also be noted that the word "barbarian" will be used here as a convenient, nonpejorative term to refer to all the non-Latin and non-Greek speaking exterae gentes who dwelt around, and even eventually settled within, the Roman Empire during late antiquity".

The significance of barbarus in Late Antiquity has been specifically explored on several occasions.

Examples of this modern usage can also be seen in the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, which has an article titled "Barbarians, the Invasions" and uses the term barbarian throughout its 13 volumes. A 2006 book by Yale historian Walter Goffart is called Barbarian Tides and uses barbarian throughout to refer to the larger pantheon of tribes that the Roman Empire encountered. Walter Pohl, a leading pan-European expert on ethnicity and Late Antiquity, published a 1997 book titled Kingdoms of the Empire: The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity. The Encyclopædia Britannica and other general audience encyclopedias use the term barbarian throughout within the context of late antiquity.

In contrast to mainstream academic usage, some politically correct authors (like Christopher I. Beckwith noted above) argue that using the word "barbarian" is insulting, even in historical contexts. For example, the "Barbarian Invasions" of Europe are sometimes called the "Migration Period."