September 6 (Thursday) 6:00 - 8:00 pm John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, 25 West 43rd Street, 17th Floor, Manhattan, NY. Admission: Member: free; Non-Members: $10. Contact: noiaw@noiaw.org 212-642-2003. Although enormously important to the region's development, Italy's Norman period (ca. 1061-1194) is relatively unknown. This presentation will offer an introduction to the society created in Sicily and southern Italy by the ambitious sons of a minor noble from northern France.

In a period of just 30 years, the Hautevilles conquered this much-contested region, lands laid claim to by no less than Holy Roman Emperors, Byzantine Emperors and rulers of an Islamic Emirate with ties to a north African caliphate. A survey of this from the 11th -12th century will be followed by a focused discussion of Roger II, the first monarch of the new kingdom, looking at how he established his power and advanced his agendas in a complex multicultural kingdom whose subjects included Latin Christians, Orthodox Christian, Muslims and Jews.

Light refreshments will be served. Dawn Marie Hayes is an Associate Professor of European History of the Middle Ages. Her most recent research focuses on Norman Sicily and southern Italy and her forthcoming book, Roger II of Sicily: Strategies of Authority and Identity in the 12th Century Mediterranean World, is an interdisciplinary study of Sicily's first king that considers him in his broader Mediterranean and European contest.