When : 28-05-2015, from 10:00 to 18:30
Where : Zebrastraat 32, Gent
Language : English
Contact Name : Marjolein Stern
Contact Email : Marjolein.stern@gmail.com
The Pirenne Consortium for Medieval Studies warmly invites you to a study day about the academic discipline of Medieval Studies.

Programme :

10:00 Registration with coffee/tea

10:30 Welcome: Prof. Koen Goethals
10:40 Introduction: Prof. Jeroen Deploige

10:50 Panel 1: Cross-cultural Research
12:20 Lunch

13:30 Panel 2: Multi-Period Research
15:00 Coffee/tea break

15:30 Panel 3: Medievalisms and Heritage

17:00 Conclusion: Dr. Marjolein Stern

17:15 Reception & Research Infrastructure Projects
Panel discussions

Cross-cultural Research
Keynote speaker: Dr. Michele Campopiano (University of York)

Cross-cultural research, Empire and Translatio imperii

The popularity of studies on empires since the 1990s has recently been labelled as the “imperial turn” in humanities and social sciences. Political scholars have moved their attention from the nation state to new transnational forms of power. This has led historians to problematize the study of political organizations and the assumptions about this that are based on the post-Westphalian system of states. The economic and administrative structures of past polities have been scrutinized from new points of view. This tendency has also brought the notion of Empire into the research agendas of historians. Empires are polities with an imperial vision of themselves, of the nature of their hegemony and its legitimacy. One of the recurring elements in the self-definitions of political legitimacy by imperial powers has been their use of and reflection upon the past, more specifically their reference to continuation or transfer of a previous universal hegemony. The concept of translatio imperii, defining the movement of world history as a transfer from one imperial hegemony to another, has allowed the replacement of the spatial organization of empire with a principle of movement of imperial authority through the ages. A comparison with different, but interwoven, cultures in Europe and the Middle East will investigate the presence of similar concepts of imperial transfer and enable us to understand how uses of the past shaped concepts of universal hegemony in these societies.

Panel members: Dr. Maria Conterno (UGent: Post-Imperial Historiography of Late Antiquity), Hilmi Kaçar (UGent: Ottoman State Formation and Ideology), Prof. Giovanna Lelli (UGent: Arab-Islamic Sciences), Prof. Peter Stabel (University of Antwerp: Market institutions, economic performance and social organisation)
Moderator: Prof. Jan Dumolyn

Multi-Period Research
Keynote speaker: Prof. Philippe Buc (University of Vienna)

Multi-period research in European History

Comparing across time-spans in the so-called longue durée is both dangerous and fruitful. In itself this form of comparative history is not unlike the trans-cultural history that will also be discussed during the Ghent conference. The danger lies in the pitfalls of faux-amis, since long underlined by the German Begriffsgeschichte. Terms, notions and ideas developed in the more recent past cannot be immediately employed on data produced by the farther past, which too had its own vocabulary and historical concepts. These initial limits to at least emic analyses that would take past grammars seriously do however open up the possibility of subtler hermeneutics shuttling between past and present. The approach is fruitful because of the harvests — either that they allow one to observe a society passing over major watersheds, or that they reveal often surprising similarities between historical moments separated in time from one another. The question then becomes how to account for these similarities. Are they the result of anthropological universals or invariants, such as those posited by rational choice models or evolutionary psychology? Or are they culturally specific, and can one then speak partly of cultural essences or substances? If so, how did they travel across time?

Panel members: Prof. Berber Bevernage (UGent: Methodology and Theory of History), Dr. Jelle De Rock (UGent: City and Society), Prof. Koen De Temmerman (UGent: Novel Saints), Prof. Erik Thoen (UGent: CORN), Prof. Wim Verbaal (UGent: History of Latin Literature: Theories and Applications)
Moderator: Prof. Youri Desplenter

Medievalisms and Heritage
Keynote speaker: Dr. Axel Müller (University of Leeds)

The Future is Medieval: The Coming Together of Impact, Heritage, and Academic Research

This lecture will be aimed at three main points:

Medieval Studies and its role in society – mainly in the UK
How are the Middle Ages viewed? What are the trigger points of where the Middle Ages become interesting or not, and where do opportunities arise to build on this?
Impact and the Public – a concept which has been emerging in the UK’s Research Evaluation Framework Exercise in the last few years – and which is mainly concerned with the impact of academic research on the wider society and community. How does this new concept relate to an older tradition of ‘public history’?

The pitfalls and opportunities that arise when dealing with changes in the British heritage sector and engaging with a heritage community, touch on transferable issues for Heritage and Medieval Studies, e.g. Impact is entering very aggressively into EU funding systems drawing on the experience of the British roll-out. The underlying issue with all of this is ‘how relevant is Medieval Studies’ and ‘how relevant can it become’ all over Europe.

Panel members: Fien Danniau (UGent: Public History), Prof. Wim De Clercq (UGent: Archaeology), Dr. Hendrik Defoort (UGent Library: Collections), Prof. Max Martens (UGent: Art history), Elien Vernackt (Bruggemuseum: MAGIS Brugge)
Moderator: Prof. Steven Vanderputten

Research Infrastructure projects

The following databases and digital editions will be showcased:

Byzantine Book Epigrams. Prof. Kristoffel Demoen and Dr Floris Bernhard
Diplomata Belgica: The diplomatic sources from the medieval Southern Low Countries. Prof. Els De Paermentier
Late Antique Historiography. Dr. Maria Conterno and Prof. Peter Van Nuffelen
Magis Brugge. Prof. Jan Dumolyn and Elien Vernackt
Narrative Sources: The narrative Sources from the medieval Low Countries. Prof. Jeroen Deploige

Registration

The event is free of charge, but registration is required. Registration is now closed, but you can contact Marjolein Stern for any last-minute registrations.