The IZMF sees itself as a centre for interdisciplinary research and teaching on the Middle Ages and the early modern period at the University of Salzburg. It has been designed as a cross-faculty institution with the task to interlink all activities in research and teaching dealing with the Middle Ages to achieve the best possible synergy and innovation effects.
Similar institutions have been established in the US, Great Britain, France and Germany in the past decades. The core aim of all these medieval centres is the endeavour to work on the Middle Ages as a complex subject of research with all its historical and cultural-historical phenomena through the cooperation of different medievistic disciplines in research and teaching.
On November 1, 2012, the University of Salzburg started an institutional partnership with the Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture (IMAREAL) in Krems, headed by university. The IZMF also cooperates with related institutions and scientific societies at home and abroad. In 2016, the “Middle High German Conceptual Database” (MHDBDB) was integrated into the IZMF and, together with the projects to explore sources digitally at the IMAREAL, represents a core field of the Digital Humanities at the University of Salzburg. Specific research priorities focus on special aspects of interdisciplinary cooperation whose results are incorporated into the courses offered.
The interlinked range of courses of the medievistic sub-disciplines is intended to give students a differentiated overall picture of this era in history. The IZMF coordinates the modules of the add-on and in-depth course of Interdisciplinary Studies of the Middle Ages and the Eearly Modern Period, which can be completed during the bachelor’s and master’s studies. Every winter term a lecture series with an interdisciplinary topic is offered.
The IZMF has committed itself to trigger a multidimensional discussion of our (power) political and cultural past, which is an indispensable prerequisite for an understanding of the background and the context in which our present is shaped. It can help to create ideas and promising concepts of solutions for the future.