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Medieval and Early Modern Studies Spring School 2024

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Landscape History & Ecology – Ghent, 27-31 May 2024

This Spring School is organised by Ghent University (Doctoral Schools), University of Groningen, the Huizinga Institute and the Dutch Research School for Medieval Studies to stimulate contacts and exchange between PhD candidates and ReMa students in the field of cultural history, art history, historical geography, urban history, archaeology, early modern history, medieval history, literary studies, environmental psychology, environmental design and engineering, sustainability studies and environmental education. The course will mainly focus on the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, but students working on Antiquity or the Modern Period can attend as well.

Topic

Climate change, depletion of natural resources, loss of natural and cultural landscapes, and many other (ecological) sustainability challenges urge us to (re)evaluate human interaction with the natural world. This renewed environmental consciousness has invigorated not only scientists working on effects in the present and solutions for the future, but also those who study the (distant) past. It has become clear that we need to take the story back(much) further than the industrialisation of the second half of the eighteenth century. Specifically in medieval and early modern studies, scholars have uncovered the deep historical backgrounds of the anthropogenic ecological challenges, including (over)exploitation of natural landscapes, diminishment of open space, deforestation, food production, use of energy and water, fauna and flora extinctions et cetera. Over the past decades, ever more research has been conducted into the ecological impact and implications of practices in different landscapes. Also the traces of environmental mentalities in art and the cultural representation of human interactions with the environment is a flourishing field, strongly influenced by ecocritical approaches. The Spring School will therefore pay attention to a wide range of ecological issues in history related to the landscape of city, country and colony and their mediation in cultural production, most notablyliterature and art. It combines a focus on the medieval and early modern period with an multidisciplinary perspective, attending to the theoretical and methodological background of landscape and cultural history, ecocriticism and archaeology.

Approaches

This course takes four topics and methodologies related to historical landscape and ecology as a starting point:

(A) History of the city and the country,

(B) Archaeology and landscape history,

(C) Artistic representation and ecocriticism,

(D) Ecology and economy.

Ten specialists will reflect from their scholarly background (landscape history, archaeology, literary studies, cultural history) on ecological issues in their own research. An accompanying reading list gives rise to further reflection and discussion with the participants. This will offer students a framework to think theoretical concepts and methodologies through in relation to their own work. Through short pitches the attending PhD students will reflect on the possibilities and difficulties of working with the same concepts and methodologies in their own research projects. A guided bike tour on the ecology of the city Ghent and its surroundings will be part of the programme, as well as an excursion to the Zwin-region and Zeeland Flanders, with presentations and discussions ‘in the field’.

Programme

Session I: Visit Exhibition ‘Ghent’s Lands’ & Bike Tour – Guide: Esther Beeckaert (Ghent Museum for Urban History STAM)

Session II & III: History of the City and the Country- Lecturers: Tim Soens & Iason Jongepier (UAntwerpen)

Session IV: Archaeology and Landscape History – Lecturer: Wim De Clercq (UGent)

Session V: Landscape History and Garden Culture – Lecturer: Willemieke Ottens (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)

Session VI: Workshop ‘Nature Writing’ – Lecturer: Femke Kramer (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)

Session VII: Artistic Representation & Ecocriticism – Lecturer: Joana van de Löcht (Universität Freiburg)

Session VIII & IX: Ecology and Economy – Lecturers: Marrigje Paijmans (University of Amsterdam), Charlotte Kießling (University of Cologne) & Thijs Lambrecht (Ghent University)

Registration

PhD students and ReMa students are invited to register for this course before 12 January 2024 through the following link: https://forms.gle/hQUuu4SVfs4wTRsq9 Please note that there is a limited number of places available for this course. After your registration you will soon receive more information about whether your registration can be confirmed or not. Some of the participating graduate/doctoral schools will cover tuition and lodging for their participating members (please wait for more information after your registration).

Organising institutions and partners

This Spring School is organised by Ghent University (Doctoral Schools), the University of Groningen, the Huizinga Institute and the Research School for Medieval Studies in cooperation with the following research groups: the Group for Early Modern Studies (UGent), the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies (UGent), the Amsterdam Centre for Studies in Early Modernity (UvA), the Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), the Centre for Urban History(UAntwerpen), the Institute for Early Modern History (UGent-VUB) and the Onderzoeksgroep Nieuwe Tijd (KU Leuven). The Spring School was also made possible by the Rudolf Agricola School for Sustainable Development (University Groningen).

Organising committee

Caroline Baetens, MA (UGent, Group for Early Modern Studies), Dr. Femke Kramer (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Research Institute for the Study ofCulture), Dr. Stefan Meysman (UGent, Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies), Dr. Marrigje Paijmans (UvA, Amsterdam Centre for Studies in Early Modernity), Prof. Jeroen Puttevils (UAntwerpen,Centre for Urban History), Prof. Hanneke Ronnes (UvA / Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Landscape History), Prof. Kornee van der Haven (UGent, Group for Early Modern Studies)

Upcoming workshop by Geertje Bol: Mary Astell on Love, Friendship and Enmity

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On Wednesday 29 March 2023, at Camelot (Blandijnberg 2, 1-2 pm), Geertje Bol (UGent, FWO postdoc) will be giving a workshop on her research in early modern history: “I Love you whom the World calls Enemies”: Mary Astell on Love, Friendship and Enmity.


Abstract: Political friendship is currently undergoing a revival both in contemporary political philosophy as well as in the history of political thought. This in turn has provoked critiques of political friendship. However, these critical voices come primarily from within the male-dominated canon, such as Machiavelli and Hobbes. And yet, we might ask, who were in a better position to critique what has been called the “exclusively male” and elitist language of political friendship than women? For that reason, I turn to the critique of political friendship we find in Mary Astell (1666–1731), the seventeenth-century philosopher and pamphleteer known as “the first English feminist.” Astell, like Aristotle, grounded friendship in virtue, reciprocity and partiality. The point of friendship was to point out one another’s flaws and help one’s friend to improve in virtue and thus attain salvation. Astell argued that such friendship could never take place in the imperfect realm of politics. However, unlike Aristotle and current proponents of “civic friendship,” Astell rejected the notion of a watered-down version of friendship in politics, one devoid of emotion and virtue, but still grounded in reciprocity and good will. She argued that such friends could not fulfil the end of friendship, namely, to improve one’s friend’s virtue. I argue that we should instead see Astell as a proponent of political enmity: after true and virtuous friends, enemies were best at fulfilling the end of friendship. Astell’s critique of political friendship and her appreciation of enmity is especially relevant for contemporary proponents of civic friendship and writers who argue that we should see partisanship as a form of friendship.

Medieval and Early Modern Studies Spring School 2023: Historical Performance Studies

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Groningen (Van Swinderen Huys), 27-31 March 2023

This Spring School is organised by Ghent University (GEMS, Thalia, Doctoral School AHL), University of Groningen, University of Göttingen, the Huizinga Institute and the Dutch Research School for Medieval Studies to stimulate contacts and exchange between PhD candidates and ReMa students in the field of literary studies, cultural history, art history, media studies, theatre studies, musicology, history of dance, history of religion, history of science, and early modern and medieval history.

Topic

Scholars of the medieval and early modern period encounter the concept of performance in various disciplines. The notion of performativity is no longer limited to the study of traditional theatrical arts but also employed to deepen our understanding of social, political, and religious events and rituals. This Spring School will therefore pay attention to a wide range of performances in history, from political gatherings, religious rituals, and courtroom proceedings to theatre, concerts, and dance. It combines a focus on the medieval and early modern period with an interdisciplinary perspective, attending to the theoretical background of performance studies, its related concepts, and its more practical sides. Moreover, the Spring School will enable speakers and participants to reflect on new methodological approaches, including digital humanities, the intertwinement of arts and science, and research through performance.

Approaches

The course takes four recent lines of research in the field of historical performance studies and their related concepts as a starting point: rituals & performativity, embodiment & self-fashioning, computational approaches, and cultural techniques. Specialists from various scholarly backgrounds (cultural history, history of knowledge, literary studies, and theatre history) will reflect on how they define and apply the above-mentioned concepts in their own research.

An accompanying reading list will offer the participants a stepping stone to engage in further reflection and discussion. Through short pitches, the attending PhD and Research Master students will reflect on the possibilities and difficulties of working with the concerning concepts in their own research projects. More informal talks about historical performance studies will be possible during a thematic guided walk through Groningen and a workshop on historical acting techniques.

Program

Session I: Walk through Groningen – Guide: Renée Vulto (Utrecht University)

Session II: Rituals and Performativity – Lecturers: Marian Füssel (University of Göttingen) & Rina Knoeff (University of Groningen)

Session III: Embodiment, Performativity & Self-fashioning – Lecturers: Sidia Fiorato (University of Verona) & Catrien Santing (University of Groningen)

Session IV: Digital Humanities and Historical Performance Studies – Lecturer: Erika Kuijpers (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Session V: Workshop Digital Humanities – Lecturers: Dinah Wouters (Huygens Institute) & Andrea Peverelli (Huygens Institute)

Session VI: Workshop Historical Acting Techniques – Teacher: Laila Neuman (Leiden University)

Session VII: Imagineering – Lecturers: Frans-Willem Korsten (Leiden University) & Kornee van der Haven (Ghent University)

Registration

PhD students and ReMa students are invited to register for this course through the following link: Registration form [https://forms.gle/3ZUvWNsyDcBgZdHeA] Please note that there is a limited number of places available for this course. After your registration you will soon receive more information about whether your registration can be confirmed or not. Some of the participating graduate/doctoral schools and research groups will cover tuition and lodging for their participating members (please wait for more information after your registration).

Organising institutions and partners

This Spring School is an initiative of GEMS (Group for Early Modern Studies, Ghent University), Thalia (Ghent University-Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Doctoral Schools AHL (Ghent University), University of Göttingen, ICOG (Research Institute for the Study of Culture, University of Groningen), the Huizinga Institute (Netherlands Graduate School for Cultural History, Utrecht University) and the Dutch Research School for Medieval Studies, in close cooperation with, IEMH (Institute for Early Modern History (Ghent University-Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Onderzoeksgroep Nieuwe Tijd (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), Ruusbroecgenootschap (University of Antwerp), and Research Centre for Visual Poetics (University of Antwerp).

GEMS Plans for the 2022-2023 Academic Year

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For the 2022-2023 academic year, GEMS is looking forward to planning both in-person and online events, including lectures, workshops, ateliers, “inspired by…” sessions, and book launches. 

Interested in taking part? If you are a Ph.D. student, postdoc, or visiting junior scholar at UGent or another institution, and are interested in participating, either as an attendee or a presenter, please be in contact with Chris Chan (Christopher.Chan@UGent.be).

If you are an advanced-career researcher and would be interested in sharing your research at UGent, through a lecture, a work-in-progress workshop, or a seminar, please be in contact with Andrew Bricker (Andrew.Bricker@UGent.be). 

We look forward to welcoming everyone back to GEMS in 2022-2023! 

Sincerely, 

The GEMS Steering Committee

GEMS in portraits: Sarah Adams

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Last Tuesday, I sat down (at a safe distance) with Sarah Adams to talk about the research she has been conducting during the last couple of years as a PhD candidate in Dutch literature. Sarah’s research deals with abolitionist/ameliorist theatre plays written and staged between 1770 and 1810 in the Netherlands, which critically address colonial slavery in the Asian and Atlantic orbits. The aim of the project is to reveal how market-led and racist ideologies are running across her corpus of abolitionist plays. By structuring her research around three classic blackface characters which are traditionally being discerned in theatre historiography (the suffering object, the contented fool and the vengeful rebel), Sarah shows that abolitionist theatre ultimately tried to safeguard a white male subjectivity. As a matter of fact, it was a pretty special day for Sarah: just a moment before our meeting, she received the first printed copy of her doctoral thesis Repertories of Slavery, which she is about to defend publicly come December 10th.

Portrait of Toussaint Louverture, chromolithograph published by George de Baptiste (ca. 1870). Washington D.C.: Library of Congress [LC-DIG-pga-05834].

How did your interests in your research arise?

“In 2013, I studied at Newcastle University as a part of an Erasmus programme. There I followed a course called ‘Writing the New World’, which was taught by Professor Matthew Grenby. In one of the lectures, we discussed The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789), an autobiographic account of a formerly enslaved Nigerian man who was manumitted and brought to Europe, where he committed himself to the abolitionist cause in the British parliament. I was absolutely fascinated by his story. In my BA thesis, I went on to investigate the abolitionist discourse of eighteenth-century Dutch texts. Remarkably, I didn’t find any autobiographical accounts like that of Equiano, but mostly theatre plays, like Kraspoekol, of de slaaverny and Monzongo, of de koningklyke slaaf. Contrary to England, postcolonial studies in the Netherlands (and Belgium) still make up a kind of wasteland yet to cultivate.”

Do you consider your work interdisciplinary?

“Yes, I do. My research is discourse-oriented and centres on white self-representation, but also on power relations and racialized oppression. I guess discourse analyses are by definition interdisciplinary. To give an example: in my chapter on the character of the contented fool, I delve into early modern uses of blackface in the theatre. In it, I show how the history of blackface in the early modern theatre is intertwined with shifting ideas concerning race, science and capitalism. In this sense, I set up a dialogue between literary and non-literary texts, like political and scientific treatises.”

Have you ever experienced a Eureka moment in your research?

Absolutely—in the Fall of 2019, I had an experience of what you might call ‘archival satisfaction’. In a book by Eberhard Rebling about ballets in the Amsterdam schouwburg, published in 1950, I came across a drawing by François Joseph Pfeiffer, who was the schouwburg’s costume designer around 1800. The drawing showed the costume for two enslaved sub-Saharan African characters, with a blackened complexion and stereotypical attributes like a tambourine and a spear. Rebling’s book indicated that the drawing was kept in the Amsterdam Six Collection. Yet despite searching this entire collection, I couldn’t find Pfeiffer’s design and the staff assumed the drawing had been sold to a private person. More than a year had gone by, when I visited the TIN (Theater Instituut Nederland, now Allard Pierson). Although the entire TIN-collection had been digitized, and the drawing wasn’t there, a staff member managed to find the drawing at the bottom of a cardboard box which had been mislaid. This drawing is very important to me, since it is the closest we can get to the actual appearance of Africanized and enslaved characters on the early modern Dutch stage.”

What is the most inspiring study you have ever read?

“That must be Silencing the Past (1995) by the Haitian historian Michel-Rolph Trouillot, who has dedicated his whole career to investigating how historiography and the acquisition of knowledge are related to power. According to Trouillot, historiography is a vast collection of ‘mentions and silences’. These silences are neither natural nor neutral; they are always actively created by dominant voices in society. Trouillot demonstrates this by means of the historiography of the 1791 Haitian Revolution in the French colony of Saint-Domingue. In a couple of days, the rebel leader Toussaint Louverture managed to mobilize tens of thousands of free and enslaved people of colour against the French coloniser, which would eventually result in the foundation of the first black, independent republic in the Caribbean in 1804. Trouillot shows that from the beginning on, the European metropoles framed the Haitian Revolution as an isolated case, which was completely depoliticized, criminalized and banalized. This was, of course, a strategy to make slave-led resistance to colonial subjection consonant with the white dominant order—Africans and their descendants were held in an unnegotiable subservient position and for them to envision freedom was ‘unthinkable,’ to use Trouillot’s term. Only recently, the Revolution of 1791 has been recognized as a crucial moment in modern history, which is reflected in the fact that more and more researchers include the Haitian Revolution into their account of the so-called ‘Age of Revolution’. Silencing the Past is an accessible study and makes researchers aware of the fact that they as well are inevitably mentioning some voices, while silencing others.” 

And the most recent one?

“De Slavernij in Oost en West. Het Amsterdam onderzoek, a volume edited by Pepijn Brandon, Guno Jones, Nancy Jouwe and Matthias van Rossum). It appeared only a couple of days ago and came about at the request of the Amsterdam city council, which will take the book as a point of reference in its decision on whether or not to offer formal apologies for the city’s colonial past. The conclusion of the editors is that Amsterdam was involved in the institution of slavery on a global scale and for a long period of time, and that this past continues to affect modern-day Amsterdam. The speech delivered by mayor Femke Halsema at the book presentation on September 29, 2020, was actually hopeful, so I expect there will be apologies in the near future. This book is of utmost importance in the campaign to raise public awareness of the country’s colonial past.”

— Tom Laureys

GEMS Inspired by…

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Michiel van Dam inspired by Philip Sheldrake

Spaces of Solidarity: History, the Urban and the Spiritual Practice of Everyday Life

Date: Wednesday, 4 March 2020, 14-16h
Place: Simon Stevin Room (Plateaustraat 22, Gent)

The work of Philip Sheldrake has become synonymous with innovative and interdisciplinary research in the field of (Christian) spirituality, with interventions coming in the domains of historiography, theology, philosophy, and social theory. Resolutely arguing for the crucial presence of spiritual practices in the sphere of everyday life, Sheldrake has opened up important new avenues of investigation for historians and social scientists looking to nuance the often rigid distinction made between religious contemplation and public life, between Christian interiority and social action. In this session, I will give a short analytic summary of Sheldrake’s recent contributions such as Explorations in Spirituality (2010) and The Spiritual City (2014), looking at the lessons we can derive from his interdisciplinary approach, his spiritual theology of social engagement, and his account of the modern-day, diverse city. I will end by reflecting on Sheldrake’s importance for my own current research project, an intellectual history of sociology as a ‘science of solidarity’, which investigates the secularizing effects of traditional notions of social assistance, as well as the potential of modern sources of faith-based solidarity for the superdiverse urban space of the 21st century.

Michiel Van Dam is postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp. In 2019 he defended his PhD-thesis at Ghent University: La révolution des temps. Revolutionary languages and politics of time in the Austrian Netherlands and the Dutch Republic (1780-1790)