Early Modern Europe in the World. Circulation of Goods and Knowledge in a Global Context

Seminar description

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The seminar departs from the historiography on network and cultural transfer developed in a new perspective of trans-national history (as an approach which deals with socio-economic and cultural interference of human groups belonging to different cultures). It thus questions Europe in the making by focusing on global exchanges of material and cultural goods during the early-modern period and aims at discussing the relevant units of analysis where such exchanges take place: empires, the Atlantic, the globe?

Contrary to a sometimes implicit assumption very common in the concept of cultural transfer, it also tries to underline how different societies have reacted against different inputs coming from others and have embodied these rejections as a key factor in the definition of their own “imagined community”. The implicit assumption is that contact and interference between different societies have been the cause of both common features and differences at the same time. Thus constant attention will be paid to the  theoretical dimension  of the tensions between local and global, and a methodological reflection on the “jeux d’échelles” will be made.

Complementary to some Departmental Seminars and in relation to the questions faced by the researchers of the Department in the framework of their own work, the seminar will be organized around both readings and presentations of work in progress.

Researchers of all years as well as EUI alumni are welcome and invited to take an active part in the seminar through presentations of the readings and of their own work and commitment to discussion.

Programme

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10 January -  A. Romano, Circulation of Books Between America, Asia and Europe (17th century)

• Juan de Palafox, Bellum Tartaricum, or The conquest of the great and most renowned empire of China, by the invasion of the Tartars, who in these last seven years, have wholy subdued that vast empire. Together with a map of the provinces, and chief cities of the countries, for the better understanding of the story. / Written originally in Latine by Martin Martinius, present in the country at most of the passages herein related, and now faithfully translated into English. , London, : Printed for John Crook, and are to be sold at his shop at the sign of the Ship in St. Paul's Church-yard., 1654. , To the reader + p. 1-42
• Avalaible on-line (EEBO database)

 

17 January - B. Yun Casalilla, Circulation of Goods and Cultural Practices and the Shaping of Aristocratic Cosmopolitan Capital

• Duc de Sain-Simon, Memoirs, vol. 1, 16, ed. And translated by L. Norton,  London, 1967, p. 164-168.

 

24 January - Circulation of Slaves 

• Cécile Vidal, « Private and State Violence Against African Slaves in Lower Louisiana During the French Period, 1699-1769 », in Thomas J. Humphrey et John Smolenski (éds.), New World Orders: Violence, Sanction, and Authority in the Colonial Americas, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005, p. 92-110 et 306-310; Ead., « Pour une histoire globale du monde atlantique ou des histoires connectées dans et au-delà du monde atlantique ? », Annales HSS, vol. 67, n° 2, 2012, pp. 391-413

 

31 January -  War, Trade and Circulation of Fiscal Knowledge

• B. Yun Casalilla, P. O’Brien (ed.), The Rise of Fiscal States. A Global History, 1500-1914, Introduction, conclusion, and chap. 11, p. 267-284.

 

14 February - Migrants and Religion

 

21 February - Technologies and the Circulation of Innovation

 

28 February - Science, Europe and the world (double session) - Readings forthcoming

 

14 March - Information and Correspondence - Readings forthcoming

 

15-16 March -  Workshop. Violence and the Circulation of Goods, Knowledge, and Cultures