The seventh international conference sponsored by FNI will address the nature and influence of naming in early modern Germany. The human tendency to experience and understand the world through names is an epistemological imperative as old and universal as language itself. All of the diverse social and cultural developments in German lands between 1450 and 1750 were characterized by an explosion of new names and the appropriation or redefinition of existing names, in each instance shaping individual and collective understanding of those very changes. The organizers of this conference seek to explore the dynamics and impact of this naming process in a variety of contexts: social, artistic, literary, theological, and scientific. How and why were specific names chosen, contested, and ultimately accepted or not? What was the relationship of these naming processes to larger cultural or political developments? How do these findings enhance our understanding of individual and collective experiences during this period of German history?

Papers are invited from scholars in all Early Modern fields focusing on any aspect of names and naming, including the following:

- Naming oneself: early modern personal and group identity. Shaping one’s own identity through names took some distinctive forms during the early modern era, ranging from self-fashioning through nicknames, pseudonyms, and other self-descriptors to artistic presentation and “branding” of names to a new interest in surnames and genealogies. Reputation and slander were accordingly very serious matters, and disputes on the subject often had wide repercussions. The development of confessional identities among various Christian denominations also involved religious labels for themselves and their adversaries, the latter including Jews and Muslims. Naming of individuals or groups was also involved in the development of ethnic or national “cultures” and communities, which in turn was closely related to attempts to define linguistic communities through standardization or textual canonization. Literature and the plastic arts were integrally part of such cultural mapping. Finally, personal identity was increasingly subject to the fulcrum of expanding early modern bureaucracies and other legal developments.

- Naming the world: early modern discovery. European voyages of global discovery, publicized by the still relatively new printing press, invariable required naming of the new people, places, plants, and animals encountered. German cartographers and authors played a pivotal role in this influential and culturally inflected process. New understanding of the natural world in general, as well as the human body, was likewise shaped by the naming and graphic representations of several German scholars and artists. Certain names, and words more broadly, had particular political, religious, or even occult significance and shaped future thinking in this respect.

- Naming the past: early modern and modern periodization and nomenclature. More than our early modern counterparts, we today tend to understand the past and our relationship to it through names (“Renaissance,” “Reformation, “Baroque,” Enlightenment,” ” Early Modern,” “Pre-modern”) applied to both society as a whole and to specific developments in literature, architecture, painting and sculpture. Scholars of all disciplines regularly dispute whether historical individuals or their works more appropriately belong to one named era or another. The usefulness of such names—as well as their inevitability—is itself a subject of much debate. What periodization names make the most sense in general or disciplinary terms? Should scholars attempt to influence popular understanding in this respect? Early modern names for historical eras also deserve more exploration, particularly given their influence on diverse areas of intellectual life.

Abstract submission

Individual or group proposals of no more than 250 words per paper are welcome, but please bear in mind the essential interdisciplinary objective when proposing panels (three papers and a commentator). Papers may be in English or German. Some travel support will be available to doctoral students.

Please send your abstract and contact information to fni@vanderbilt.edu. All other queries can be addressed to joel.f.harrington@vanderbilt.edu. Deadline for submissions: 15 August 2014.