A discussion on actors, theory, methods with Paul Nelles (Carleton University) and Thomas Wallnig (University of Vienna)
Der kanadische Wissenshistoriker und Spezialist für frühneuzeitliche Bibliotheksgeschichte Paul Nelles wird sich im kommenden Sommer in Madrid und Rom aufhalten. Ich habe diesen Umstand zum Anlass genommen, um einen Workshop am Europäischen Hochschulinstitut (EUI) in Fiesole zu organisieren, wo DoktorandInnen mit einem Forschungsschwerpunkt im Bereich der Wissens-, Bibliotheks- und Informationsgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit ihre Forschung vorstellen und diskutieren können. Der Wiener Wissenschaftshistoriker Thomas Wallnig wird als Vortragender und Diskutant an dem Workshop auch mitwirken. Das Seminar wird vom EUI, der Carleton University und dem Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung (IÖG) veranstaltet und findet am 7. Mai 2014 in Florenz am Europäischen Hochschulsinstitut statt, einen Tag vor der ebenfalls am EUI angesetzten GRAECH-Konferenz, sodass interessierte DoktorandInnen die beiden Veranstaltungen gemeinsam besuchen können.
Ich möchte alle interessierten DoktorandInnen auf diese Veranstaltung hinweisen und ermutigen, unter Bezugnahme auf den beiliegenden Call for Papers Vorschläge einzusenden.
Diese können englisch oder deutsch abfgefasst sein; die Tagungssprache ist englisch.
Bei Annahme der Abstracts erfolgt eine Übernahme der Reisekosten.
Deadline für Einreichung des Abstracts: 10.04.2014
CFP: Making knowledge public in early modern Europe: a discussion on actors, theory, methods with Paul Nelles (Carleton University) and Thomas Wallnig (University of Vienna)
The seminar aims at bringing together a group of PhD researchers interested in the history of scholarship, of the written culture, and cultural institutions to discuss problems related to the ordering and circulation of knowledge in the early modern period. The workshop seeks to address problems bearing upon the relationship between sites of knowledge (libraries, universities, print houses, botanical gardens, cabinets of curiosity), the exercise of power (patronage, propaganda, censorship), and the mobility of knowledge (media, networks, modes of transmission). In particular, the workshop will address the various methodological problems that arise in attempting to reconstruct the history of cultural practices. We will thus seek to critically evaluate the various actors and agents involved in the production and circulation of knowledge in the early modern world, and explore the role of archives of knowledge in the same time (correspondence, travel journals, notes, catalogues, etc.). Finally we would like to investigate the relationship between the object of historical knowledge (individuals, institutions, practices) and the scale of analysis. What kinds of histories are we able to write in regard to different forms of evidence? What results are obtained when different perspectives intersect and different methodologies are combined?
Paul Nelles is associate Professor at Carleton University and is a specialist in the history of Renaissance knowledge and its organisation. He is now in Europea for a sabbatical year, between Madrid and the Vatican Library, in order to finalizing a project on the Tipografia Vaticana and the communication in the first years of the Society of Jesus (tentative title The Information Order: Writing, Mobility and Distance in the Making of the Society of Jesus). Among his publications Seeing and Writing: the Art of Observation in the Early Jesuit Missions.”, in “Intellectual History Review. Special issue: Note-taking and Notebooks from Da Vinci to Darwin, ed by Ann Blair and Richard Yeo, Vol. 20, Issue 3, 2010) e The Library as an Instrument of Discovery: Gabriel Naudé and the Uses of History." In History and the Disciplines: The Reclassification of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Donald R. Kelley. Rochester UP, 1997).
Thomas Wallnig is the director of the START project based at the University of Vienna, entitled Monastic Enlightenment and the Benedictine Republic of Letters. The Correspondence of the Brothers Pez. The primary objective of the project is the publication of the correspondence of Bernhard and Hieronymus Pez, Benedictine historians in the abbey of Melk in the first half of the 18th century. Their more than 1000 extant letters are among the most valuable sources for the history of erudition in Austria in this period. With these letters as a starting point, individual avenues of research are pursued to investigate various aspects of the monastic culture of erudition in its political, social, cultural, philosophical and intellectual contexts. Thomas, in particular, focuses on the re-definition of the early modern Republic of Letters and the role played by correspondences and private archives in the writing of history. He is on the way to Princeton and Stanford, where he is going to spend next year. Among his publications with Thomas Stockinger, Die gelehrte Korrespondenz der Brüder Pez. Text, Regesten, Kommentare, 1: 1709–1715 [The Learned Correspondence of the Brothers Pez. Text, Summaries, Commentary, vol. 1: 1709–1715] (Quelleneditionen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 2/1, Wien–München 2010) and Gasthaus und Gelehrsamkeit. Studien zu Herkunft und Bildungsweg von Bernhard Pez OSB vor 1709 (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 48, Wien 2007).