Ayoush Lazikani, "The Medieval Moon: A History of Haunting and Blessing" (Yale UP, 2025)

Summary

Podcast Summary:

New Books Network: Ayoush Lazikani, "The Medieval Moon: A History of Haunting and Blessing" (Yale UP, 2025)
Date: December 6, 2025
Host: Morteza Hajizadeh
Guest: Dr. Ayoush Lazikani, University of Oxford

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Episode Overview

This episode features Dr. Ayoush Lazikani, a lecturer at Oxford and specialist in medieval literature, discussing her new book, The Medieval Moon: A History of Haunting and Blessing. The conversation delves into how the moon served as a powerful symbol across medieval cultures—Christian, Islamic, East Asian, and beyond—embodying mystery, transformation, and dualities of blessing and haunting. Far from being a solely Eurocentric history, Lazikani’s work stitches together global traditions, demonstrating the moon’s enduring role in shaping spiritual, literary, and scientific thought from 700 to 1600 and its continued resonance today.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dr. Lazikani’s Background and Path to the Book

• Focus: Started in English literature, specifically texts for anchorites (Christian recluses), eventually expanding to comparative studies involving Islamic contemplative literature. Noticed the moon's prominence across cultures, leading to a global history focused on its medieval significance.
• Quote:

  “The Moon was really central to both [Christian and Islamic] cultures…really fundamental to how they think about their faith.” (03:30, Lazikani)

2. The Moon in Medieval Riddles & Cosmology

• Medieval riddles (Old English, Old Norse) often used the moon as a metaphor for uncertainty and transformation—a celestial entity both familiar and fundamentally mysterious.
• Quote:

  “The moon itself was a kind of riddle for medieval people. It changed form…there’s this sense that they didn’t know where it went.” (05:55, Lazikani)

• The riddle format skillfully reflected the elusive knowledge medieval societies had about lunar behavior.
• Notable Moment: Discussion of Old English riddles where the moon’s disappearance during its cycle inspired speculation and creative mythmaking. (06:59)

3. Moon Personification and Religious Identity

• Across civilizations, the moon was personified—as deities (Selene, Diana, Artemis in Greco-Roman tradition; Chang’e in Chinese mythology; divine figures in Mayan and Islamic tradition).
• The moon was often both an object of worship and a symbol of complex religious identities:
  • Christianity: the Virgin Mary on the crescent moon.
  • Islam: Sufi poets describing God as the moon.
• Quote:

  “Depending on the culture… the moon is really central to exploring and understanding religious identities.” (08:43, Lazikani)

4. Imagined Journeys to the Moon: Exile & Otherness

• Medieval minds imagined lunar journeys—well before space travel became real—turning the moon into a place of exile or longing.
  • English poem: a man exiled to the moon for stealing thorns.
  • Ariosto’s 'Orlando Furioso': Orlando’s sanity is exiled to the moon.
  • Japanese 'Tale of the Bamboo Cutter': a moon princess sent to earth as a form of exile, exploring themes of belonging and separation.
• Quote:

  “It shows that they were thinking about [space journeys] so many centuries before it was scientifically possible.” (12:47, Lazikani)

5. Lunar Phenomena as Divine Signs

• In Islam, the splitting of the moon (Surah al-Qamar) is considered a miracle of Prophet Muhammad—a symbol of judgment, eschatology, and the afterlife.
• In Christianity, lunar motifs appear in art, e.g., the Virgin Mary on the moon, or the sun and moon at the crucifixion, symbolizing cosmic upheaval.
• Quote:

  “The moon was often used to symbolize the church…The church reflects the light of Christ just as the moon reflects the light of the sun.” (15:11, Lazikani)

6. The Moon and Medieval Medicine

• Both Western (Latin Christian) and Islamic medical traditions classified the moon as a planet (Ptolemaic cosmology), closest to Earth and thus highly influential on human health.
• Treatments—particularly bloodletting—were often timed with lunar phases and zodiacal positions (melothesia), linking cosmology and therapeutic practice.
• Quote:

  “It was perceived as the planet closest to the Earth, that it was seen to have such a profound influence on illness and health.” (20:10, Lazikani)

7. The "King Moon" and Social Ethics

• In South Asian myth, the moon’s obsession with one star to the neglect of its duties leads to disease—a narrative underlining social harmony and dharma (proper conduct).
• Restoring cosmic and social order leads to healing—linking cosmology, health, and ethical behavior. (23:00)

8. The Moon as a Symbol of Mutability and Grief

• The changing phases of the moon inspired medieval associations with instability, illusion, and sorrow.
  • Chaucer: the moon as deceptive, unstable.
  • Kalila wa Dimna: the moon’s image as illusion.
  • The poem Pearl: the moon becomes emblematic of unfulfillable longing after loss—grief for a lost child, separation.
• Quote:

  “From this developed this idea of the moon being associated with mutability…pain that’s associated with that mutability and the grief of being in what was understood to be the sublunary world.” (25:17, Lazikani)

9. The Moon of Loves and Embraces: From Earthly Love to Mystical Union

• Chapter 6 explores the moon as a metaphor for love—from Persian ('Layli and Majnun'), European, and Welsh poets, to Sufi mystics.
• Sufis transformed the moon from a conventional symbol of romantic (earthly) love to a representation of divine unity and transcendence:
  • Ibn Arabi used the full moon’s image of a 14-year-old beloved to evoke the perfection and unchanging nature of the divine, going beyond earthly cycles.
• Quote:

  “They take this image and they transform it so it’s actually about divine love… the divine doesn’t move through the typical circuits of the moon.” (30:42, Lazikani)

10. The Global Middle Ages: Beyond Eurocentrism

• Lazikani’s approach is consciously global, including Japanese, Persian, Arabic, and other traditions, reflecting the moon’s universal presence.
• The ‘global Middle Ages’ challenges Eurocentric perspectives, urging scholars to see the moon (and the medieval past) as a shared legacy shaping all civilizations.
• Quote:

  “The moon is a shared part of creation, regardless of where someone is in the world… associated with the imagination, literary and artistic expression. This is something… shared across traditions.” (32:36, Lazikani)

11. Medieval Insights for Contemporary Life

• The intimacy medieval minds felt with the moon—seeing it as guide, companion, and teacher—has relevance in today’s conversations about environment, technology, and humanity’s cosmic context.
• Medieval moon stories remind us that we are in dialogue with the cosmos, not masters over it, underpinning both ecological perspectives and our ongoing fascination with space.
• Quote:

  “We are in dialogue... with the cosmos and with nature and not separate from it. So I think that's what the medieval world offers us—this sense of intimacy between humanity and broader creation of which we are part.” (36:10, Lazikani)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The moon itself was a kind of riddle for medieval people. It changed form…they didn’t know where it went.” (05:55, Ayoush Lazikani)
• “Across cultures, the moon is associated with the imagination, with literary and artistic expression.” (32:36, Lazikani)
• "We are in dialogue with the cosmos and with nature and not separate from it." (36:15, Lazikani)
• “I hope to achieve…really to think of the centuries from 700 to 1600...from a global perspective.” (33:28, Lazikani)
• “In Japanese culture, [the moon is] a companion for the nun as she's undertaking journeys…across the text, the moon has a profound link with humans.” (35:26, Lazikani)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [02:47] Dr. Lazikani’s academic background and genesis of the project
• [05:34] Medieval moon riddles: the moon as a puzzle
• [07:15] Personification of the moon in world traditions
• [09:33] Imagined lunar journeys: otherness, exile, and belonging
• [13:12] Lunar phenomena: eclipses, splitting of the moon, and religious meaning
• [18:09] The lunar influence in medicine and ritual practice
• [22:07] South Asian “King Moon” myth and ethical order
• [24:13] Moon’s role as symbol of mutability, illusion, and grief
• [27:07] The moon and love: Sufis and the mystical beloved
• [31:16] The ‘global Middle Ages’ and breaking Eurocentric study
• [34:06] What the medieval lunar legacy offers the present

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Tone & Style

The conversation is thoughtful and accessible, blending intellectual rigor with genuine enthusiasm for the subject. Dr. Lazikani’s explanations are both scholarly and vivid, often weaving storytelling with analysis, and the host’s questions steer the dialogue into new territory without losing focus on the overarching themes.

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Summary for Non-Listeners

This interview paints a sweeping, multi-cultural portrait of the moon in medieval imagination. Across riddles and folk tales, medical manuals and mystical poetry, Dr. Lazikani traces how the moon’s changeable face inspired ideas about mystery, love, exile, health, cosmic order, and spiritual longing. Her book and this interview urge us to recognize the moon not just as a scientific object, but as a deeply shared cultural artifact that continues to shape how humanity sees itself in the universe—bridging past and present, earth and sky, the local and the global.

Transcript

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Welcome to the New Books Network.

[A]

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of New Books Network. This is your host, Morteza Hajizadeh from Critical Theory Channel. Today I'm honored to be speaking with a very special guest about a wonderful topic.

I'm speaking with Dr. Ayush Lazikhani. Dr. Ayush Lazikhani is a lecturer at the University of Oxford. She's a specialist in Medieval literature and she's the author of Cultivating the Hearts and Emotions in Christian and Islamic Contemplative Texts 1100-1250. She's also an associate editor for the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Medieval Women's Writing in Global Middle Ages. She's here today to talk with us about a recent book and a fascinating book that she has published with Yale University Press. The book is called the Medieval A History of Haunting and Blessing. Ayush. Welcome to New Books Network.

[C]

Thank you very much, Morteza, for having me. It's a real pleasure.

[A]

Thank you. Before we start talking about the book, can you just very briefly introduce yourself, talk about your.

Expertise and how you became interested in this area?

[C]

Absolutely. I started my studies in English literature, so I particularly focused on medieval literature written for or anchorites or religious recluses. That was my background and my initial research was on Christian literature. But I then began to do more comparative work comparing Christian and Islamic contemplative literature from the medieval period. And something I noticed was that the Moon was really central to both cultures.

In a way that that is really fundamental to how they think about their faith. And I also realized that the Moon is very important to, for example, Japanese, Chinese, Korean culture. And so I thought it would be a great idea to do a global history of the moon as understood in the medieval period.

[A]

This is amazing.

And I did not know that you studied English literature and that kind of put it all into perspective, because in this book you do have a lot of references to literary works. And I'm originally from Iran myself, and I don't know much about the classic Persian literature, but I know this much that the moon features a lot in that literature. And then I studied English literature, and again, I could see how the significance of literary and symbolic and also religious significance of the Moon in English literature and culture.

So it's fascinating that you've been able to bring all this together to do sort of a global history of the significance of Moon. And I must say, before continue this conversation, there are lots of wonderful chapters in the book, but unfortunately, because of the time, we can't get to go to a lot of details. So I've mainly come up with some questions around the areas that I was interested in. But I do strongly recommend to our listeners to pick up and read the book. Just looking at the table of content, you can see the depth.

Range of different topics that is covered. I wish we could talk about all of them. Let me ask you about.

The significance of, let's say, medieval riddles. That's something you discuss in the book. How did these medieval riddles and also the cosmological models reflect.

This reflective, let's say, the significance of the moon as something that is known and at the same time, unknown?

[C]

Yes. So we have a lot of riddles surviving in early languages of early medieval Europe. And I look particularly at Old English and Old Norse riddles. And it's interesting that.

These early medieval people, writing in Old English and Old Norse, used the riddle as a form of exploring the moon and what it might signify. Because, as I suggest in the book, I think the moon itself was a kind of riddle for medieval people. It changed form. It was not there during the day.

There's this sense that they didn't know where it went.

And so these riddles, in exploring the moon through the ridic form, they also touch on the idea of the moon as both known and unknown, that it has qualities that can be seen, but also a lot about the moon that isn't known. And I think the ridic form is really perfect for that.

[A]

It's an important point. Yeah. Because I wonder how medieval people thought about that, because we know where the moon is during the day, but.

That time. Yeah, go ahead, please.

[C]

Yeah. One of the old English riddles actually talks about not knowing where the moon goes after it passes its circuit. So there's a sense of this unknowability of the moon.

[A]

And.

What about the personification of the moon? I think it's many cultures it was considered to be a deity. It was also associated with warriors. So in different cultures, it associated with different entities. And I'm interested to know how these different personifications.

Shape culture and religious identities across medieval traditions.

[C]

Yes, absolutely. So the moon is personified as a deity in a number of different cultures.

This is true for, for example, Greco Roman culture, where we have Celine, but also Diana or Artemis. It's true in Chinese culture where we have the moon goddess Shange. And I particularly look at Shange and Diana or Artemis.

But we also have.

Moon deities in many other cultures as well. And also the sense that humans could become the moon. So, for example, in a Mayan epic, the Popul Vuh, it describes how two brothers become the sun and the moon in terms of how the moon is important for religious identities.

That we see in different cultures. So, for example, in Chinese culture, Shange is associated with Daoism, but also the moon is very central to religion in Christianity, where we have the image of the Virgin Mary standing on a crescent moon. Very pervasive image, but also very important in Islamic poetry as well. For example, among the Sufis who describe the moon God himself as a moon. So depending on the culture we're thinking about, the moon is really central to exploring and understanding religious identities in this period, I think.

[A]

And one topic that I really found fascinating was when you discussed you have a chapter on imagining journeys from to and from the moon. And I found it fascinating that even in medieval period, people thought about traveling to the moon. They thought about moon as a location.

Of, let's say, exile. There's a text, he discussed that in some European folktales, there has been portrait of man. I mean, moon as a site of exile. Can you talk about these imagined journeys to and from the moon? What does it reveal? What does it show about medieval conception of belonging, exile, otherness?

[C]

Yeah, it's really fascinating, as you say, that even in the medieval period, long before there was real space travel, people could Imagine traveling to the moon. And this was clearly a pervasive part of the medieval imaginary, as it were.

And I look at a few different stories about traveling to and from the moon. One is an English poem which talks about a man exiled to the moon for committing a crime. Well, the crime.

It sounds very small to us today. It was just stealing thorns in order to make hedges to stop livestock from roaming. But this poem deals with the idea that the moon is a place of exile.

And then differently, in an Italian epic.

By Ariosto the Orlando Furioso, there's this idea that one's sanity can be exiled to the moon. The titular character, Orlando, loses his mind and his sanity goes to the moon. And his cousin has to travel to the moon to find it.

And then there's another story, a Japanese one, the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, which talks about, really, earth as a place of exile, because it works in the opposite direction. We have a princess of the moon come to Earth for a time. But rather than it being a harsh place of exile, she really develops attachments to the adoptive human parents who raise her.

And the other human beings with whom she makes friends. But in the end, she has to go back to the moon. So it deals with exile happening in another direction. Being exiled from the moon, as it were, but nonetheless finding a lot of hope and happiness in this Exile on earth.

[A]

All sounds very modern. It's kind of difficult to imagine a. That such stories were written in medieval ages. They have really very modern ring to it.

[C]

Yes, definitely. I think.

Particularly this idea of traveling to the moon. It shows that they were thinking about that so many centuries before it was actually scientifically possible to travel to the moon.

[A]

Another aspect.

Of the moon that you discuss in the book is, and I was really fascinated when I found that you were kind of talking about both the Islamic tradition also the Christian tradition in terms of how they interpret lunar phenomenon such as eclipses or even the splitting of the moon as a sign of divine intervention. I think.

Like I said, I'm from original, from Iran, and I read in my school books when I was a kid that when according to Islamic theology or Islamic history, and it's a bit of an exaggeration, understand that when Prophet Muhammad was born, the moon was split in two. I don't know if it's a Shiite story or if it exists in the Sunni tradition or not. But again, this is splitting of the moon or eclipse, these lunar phenomenon. Can you tell us how did they. And I know it's a broad question, how did the Christians and Islamic traditions interpret this phenomenon as a sign of divine intervention.

[C]

Yes. Well, in the Islamic tradition, there's, as I'm sure you're familiar with, the Surah al Qamar, the moon. It opens with the miracle of the prophet through God's power splitting the moon. And it's been interpreted in different ways, partly interpreted historically, that the unbelievers still wouldn't believe Muhammad even after he's managed to split the moon through God's power. But it was also linked to eschatology, to the study of the afterlife, and it was seen as a sign of the hereafter.

With Christian texts. The moon has very different symbolic.

Valences or potencies. On the one hand, the moon was often used to symbolize the church. So this idea that the church reflects the light of Christ just as the moon reflects the light of the sun.

But we also see both moon and sun in crucifixion scenes. It's very common to see the moon and the sun during the crucifixion, which.

Serves, I think, to emphasize the cosmic significance of that moment in Christian salvation history.

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What about the.

But I mean, what. So let's say.

Why was the Moon considered central? I mean, we briefly talk about the religious interpretation of that, but also in a more scientific context, Moon was also considered really central to medieval medical theory. How was it perceived.

In terms of the influence it had in diagnostic therapeutic practices?

[C]

Yes. So in both Western, the Latin west and in Islamic traditions, the Moon was understood to be a planet. And this was influenced by Ptolemy. And there was this sense that the Moon was the closest planet to the Earth.

And because of this, it had a really strong influence on human beings as the closest planet to the Earth.

And part of this was influence on illness and well being and health and well being. So there was this idea that the Moon influenced.

The position of the Moon, influenced treatment regimes and prognosis. So for example, a lot of Moon medicine is based on Malassia, which is this idea that different zones zodiac signs impact different parts of the body. And so when the Moon was in this zodiac sign, it meant that you shouldn't perform treatment on that particular part of the body. So for example, Aries was associated with the head.

So there was the belief that if the Moon was in Aries, you shouldn't perform any treatment on the head.

And so a lot of medicine is linked to this idea of malethesia and the position of the Moon in the cosmos at any given point. But fundamentally, I think it was because of the Moon's closeness to the Earth, because it was perceived as the planet closest to the Earth, that it was seen to have such a profound influence on illness and health.

[A]

And I think even in. Well, I could Be mistaken. So I'm kind of asking, curious, you know, your thoughts, even in.

Modern, let's say.

Pop culture, that still resonates, that idea of your proximity to the moon and the impact it can have on your health. I think in public imagination, even in movies, some movies, you know, this still has this resonance.

[C]

Yes, yes, absolutely. And I think even in the medieval period.

There'S a kind of link, really, with modern ideas because the moon was understood to be moist.

So had a particular link with fluids.

And so bloodletting was particularly dependent on the position of the moon, the key healing practice of bloodletting. And I think even today, there's this idea, as you say in modern popular culture, that the moon influences fluids in the body just as it influences the tides.

[A]

Yeah, just great, fascinating stuff. How about. There's a story you discuss in the book, stories like the King's Moon, King Moons. How does it. It show.

How these stories.

Show, like wasting, disease, illuminate. How do the stories illuminate this? At the intersection of cosmology, health, and more importantly, social ethics in medieval thought.

[C]

Yes. So the King Moon story.

Belongs to South Asian traditions. And it's this idea that the moon developed a particular obsession for one specific star. And in developing this obsession, he wasn't performing his lunar duties or his duties to the other stars.

And as a result of that.

He suffers from a wasting disease.

And there's this idea that.

In not performing his obligations, the moon itself is afflicted with an illness. And it's only until the order of the world is restored.

And.

The order and.

The proper movement of the moon with seeing the stars and meeting all the lunar and marital obligations, it's only till then that everything is put right.

And he is cured. So there's a sense in this story of the moon being associated with what is right to do socially.

What people believe is right to do socially. This idea of Dhamma in the South Asian traditions and the essence of all that is being, instability.

[A]

And the idea of. And again, this is, again, one of those.

Conceptions of the moon that has still remained with us. And that's the idea of moon being a symbol of mutability, illusion and grief, which was really prominent in medieval literature and art. And in that chapter, which is, I guess, chapter five of the book, which is called the Moon of Sorrows and Illusions, there are many texts you describe, because you discussed Chaucer's text, you discussed this famous Arabic text, Kalilo Demna, and lots of other texts. And I know that, again, the question is terribly Broad. But how did moon become that symbol of mutility in grief in medieval thought?

[C]

Yeah. So I think, as today, I imagine when medieval people looked at the Moon, they saw that it changed shape, that it doesn't stay stable or the same. And from this developed this idea of the moon being associated with mutability, with what is not stable.

And this more broadly then becomes connected with the pain that's associated with that mutability and the grief of being in what was understood to be the sublunary world, the world beneath the moon.

So we see, for example, in a lot of Chaucer's poetry, the moon associated with the sense of illusion, that it isn't quite stable, that it is not a stable sign of truth or comfort, but is associated with what can easily trick or deceive. We see this also in the poetry of Robert Henrison, a Scottish poet.

Also you mentioned Kalila Wadimna, and that contains a story of elephants being tricked by rabbits through an illusion of the moon in water. So again, the moon associated with illusion. So I think it's just that shifting nature of the moon led people to connect it more broadly to ideas of what is not true, what is decept. And we also have the English poem Pearl, which deals with the idea of a father's grief for his infant daughter who sadly dies. And.

In this poem, the moon becomes linked with the father's grief and his inability to reach his daughter now that she's been separated from him.

[A]

This is a wonderful book, but my most favorite chapter was chapter six. When you talk about the Moon of Loves and Embraces.

And what I really like about the book in general, and again, this chapter in particular, is that you beautifully bring.

It's a medieval history of Moon. And I must say that when I picked up the book, I thought it was more or less focused on European text as well. Most, let's say European, sorry, most middle medieval academic books might be, but you beautifully bring together texts from Europe, texts from Islamic tradition, text from Persia. And in this chapter, again, which is about moon being, let's say, the metaphor of a conventional metaphor for love.

You talk about the Sufis, you talk about the Persian poet Nizami, and he's famous for poem Laeliu Magnun, you talk about the Welsh poet Dafit. I'm not sure about how pronounced the last name. I'm sure I'm going to butcher it, so I'll leave it to you to correct me. But anyway, you bring together different authors and poets from different parts of the world. There.

My Question is getting more focused on Sufis. I'd say Sufi mystics, in what way they transformed this conventional metaphor of the moon as a beloved into a symbol of divine unity and transcendence. I guess more or less people are familiar with moon being the symbol of love, but Sufis had a different take. And to them it was not only earthly love, but it became like symbol of divine unity. Can you talk about that, please?

[C]

Absolutely. And thank you for your kind and thoughtful words about the book.

With the, the Sufis. So that as as you mentioned, in Arabic and Persian poetry, there's this conventional image of the beloved one being as beautiful as the moon or being like the moon in beauty. And what the Sufis, Sufi poets, the ones I look at, so Shustari, Ibn Arabi, Rumi, what they do is they take this image and they transform it so that it's actually about divine love, about love of God in all its forms. And one particularly interesting poem is by Ibn Arabi where he talks about the moon being a 14 year old girl. Now this is quite uncomfortable for us today because he's seeing a 14 year old girl as an object of desire. It reminds us that, that children could be seen as objects of desire in this period. But the reason he makes her specifically 14 years old is it's the 14th day is the day of the full moon in the Islamic lunar calendar. And he talks about this moon girl, this 14 year old girl who is the moon not moving through the typical signs of the zodiac, not changing shape. So it's this idea that the moon is the divine, as the moon isn't like the ordinary moon in that it doesn't move. The divine doesn't move through the typical circuits of the moon or.

Correspond to typical ways of thinking and seeing. The divine transcends all of this and Ibn Arabi uses the moon to explore that.

[A]

Another question I have, I only have a couple other questions, but I think by now listeners have realized that this book is sort of vast in its scope, geographical, let's say, scope you talk about, we mentioned Japanese, you mentioned European text.

Persian text, Arabic texts. And this is concept of global Middle Ages that you've beautifully, you know, incorporated into your study.

And a lot of historians, medieval historians, are opening up, let's say, their scope of studies to embrace not only European culture and geography, but also other Middle Ages, which is, I guess called global Middle Ages. In what ways does this concept of global Middle Ages challenge Eurocentric lunar traditions and invite us to read the moon as a shared cultural artifact across different cultures? And civilizations.

[C]

Yes. So I was attracted to this idea of the global Middle Ages for its vastness, for the fact that it didn't see the medieval world as being confined to Europe or the west, but saw that.

A way in which we could, to use Jonathan See's term.

Separates the term medieval from a purely European context.

And what I found with the moon, obviously, the moon is.

A shared part of creation, regardless of where someone is in the world. And so it seemed like a particularly.

Apt subject in which to take a global perspective. But more than this, I think across cultures, the moon is associated, associated with the imagination, with literary and artistic expression. And this is something that's shared across traditions. And so what I hope to achieve is really to think of the centuries from 700 to 1600, so quite a broad definition of the medieval period. I hope to.

See those centuries from a global perspective. And with this, of course, the term medieval itself is problematic. I do use it in the book as shorthand for those centuries, but it's not an ideal term because it's particularly associated with the west, with European history, centuries. But it's just useful as a shorthand for that broad span of periods.

[A]

And I have one last question.

Your book is, let's say, a history of medieval moon, but we can see, as it was clear throughout this interview, also it's not only about medieval period. It very much intersects with contemporary period as well. I'm interested to know how can the medieval moon's dual role as a source of mystery, guidance, and also cultural imagination help us help contemporary conversations about our relationships with nature, with technology, with cosmos, especially in a time where environmental challenges and global warming are really topical issues. And also, we are living in an age of space exploration. People are talking about inhabiting Mars might sound outlandish. I'm not going to make a comment on that. But I'm interested to know, how can reading this medieval history help us better understand or inform our conversations about our relationship with nature and cosmos?

[C]

Yeah. Thank you for yet another lovely question. Well, I think that what the medieval world offers us is a real sense of the intimacy between the moon and humanity.

Quite literally. For example, the Japanese nun Ubutsu is quite literally seen as a companion for the nun as she's undertaking journeys, a journey in medieval Japan. And I think across the text, the moon has a profound link with humans across texts and images, throughout the cultures the book explores. And I think that raises larger questions about how we relate to the cosmos and the natural world, and how we are, in fact, intimately implicated within this broader culture within this broader environment and world, and that we are in dialogue, I think, with the cosmos and with nature and not separate from it. So I think that's what the medieval world offers us, is this sense of the intimacy between humanity and broader creation of which we are part.

[A]

And it's beautiful. Whenever I talk to my friends, like I told you, I'm an enthusiast in medieval history, but I'm a firm believer that it's impossible for us to understand modernity, to understand contemporary history and culture, if we did not study medieval history.

And especially dispel all those myths about, you know, medieval history being a time of oppression and lack of creativity or suppression of knowledge and science. But I always feel that whenever I read a book about medieval history, I can understand how it relates to our contemporary topics and conversations. And I guess this book that you've written also beautifully manifests that theme. Dr. Ayush Lazikani, I do want to thank you a lot for the time you took to speak with us about your book. This is such a fascinating book, and I do strongly recommend it to our listeners. The Medieval Moon, A History of Haunting and Blessing. And I must say, despite the fact that it is an academic, but it's highly accessible. And to me personally, it introduced a lot of different texts to me that I was not familiar with. And I made a list of some of them to be able to follow up and read them, hopefully sometime soon. So thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us on New Books Network about your book.

[C]

Thank you so much for having me, Morteza. It's been such a pleasure. There.