L'Agenda des Médiévistes

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.

A conference about the future challenges of libraries
KU Leuven
9 – 10 – 11 September 2015

A collaboration of the University of Leuven, Goethe-Institut Brüssel & British Council Brussels
Location: KU Leuven, University Hall & University Library

To commemorate the centenary of the destruction of the Library in 1914, the Goethe-Institut Brüssel, the British Council Brussels and the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) are organising a three day international conference on the challenging topic: What do we lose when we lose a library?

The fragility of libraries in their material and digital dimension remains, 100 years after the fire, one of the greatest challenges for the transmission of human knowledge. The two conference themes Library & Heritage and Library & Digital Challenge will shed light on the vision and approach to the past and the future of libraries. The conference is addressed to scholars as pioneers of organising cultural memory through expertise and knowledge. The aim is to raise worldwide public consciousness of the important task of sharing collective and cultural memory, and to raise awareness of the challenges libraries face in performing this task.

Important deadlines
Monday January 5, 2015: Abstract submission opens
Monday January 26, 2015: Early bird registration opens
Monday March 16, 2015: Deadline abstract submission
Monday March 30, 2015: Abstract acceptance announced
Friday May 15, 2015: Deadline early bird registration
Monday August 31, 2015: Registrations closed

Background on the fire of the library in the Great War

100 years ago, during the Great War, in the night of 25-26 August 1914, soldiers set the fourteenth-century University Hall and its eighteenth-century library wing of the University of Leuven (Belgium) ablaze. This was part of The Sack of Louvain, which made a tremendous impression on international public opinion. There was no hesitation in denouncing this act with powerful words and historical comparisons. The plundering of Leuven could clearly be compared with the sacking of Rome in 1527 and the Leuven Library fire with that of Alexandria.

To commemorate the Anniversary of the Library’s destruction, the Goethe-Institut Brüssel, the British Council, Brussels and the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) are organizing a three day international conference on the challenging topic: What do we lose when we lose a library? The fragility of libraries in their material and digital dimension remains, 100 year after the fire, one of the great challenges for the transmission of human knowledge. Repositories with books and data files all over the world are developing strategies and generating research to pass on library and archival materials. The three day conference in Leuven aims to create a platform for cutting edge research and disseminations of ideas in the field of library, information and knowledge preservation. Moreover, it aims to reflect on the importance and the value of the ‘library’ as an institution guaranteeing transmission of knowledge to the next generations.

A General Session on the conference theme What do we lose when we lose a library? and two Special Sessions: Library & Heritage and Library & Digital Challenge [working Titles] will shed light on the vision and approach on the past and the future of libraries. The conference is addressed to librarians and scientist as pioneers of organizing cultural memory via expertise and knowledge. The meeting intends to raise public consciousness concerning this important task of sharing collective and cultural memory, and to raise awareness concerning the challenges libraries face in performing this task. The international conference is hosted by the University of Leuven (KU Leuven)

Organisation board

Mel Collier, KU Leuven
Sonja Griegoschewki, Goethe-Institut Brüssel
Andrew Murray, British Council
Hilde Van Kiel, KU Leuven
Garrelt Verhoeven, KU Leuven
Lieve Watteeuw, Chair, KU Leuven

Supporting Libraries and Institutions
Goethe-Institut Brüssel, Brussels
British Council, Brussels
British Library, London
Lambeth Palace Library, London
Trinity College, Cambridge
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbuttel
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München
Library of Congress, Washington
Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen
University of Antwerp
Bibliothèque de l’Université catholique de Louvain
Flanders Heritage Library
Unesco Belgium
Trinity College Library, Dublin
KU Leuven organization
Central Library; University Archives; Tabularium; Art Collection
Maurits Sabbe Library, Faculty of Theology; Illuminare, Centre for the Study of Medieval Art; Digital Humanities Summer School, Faculty of Arts; Digital Lab

Source de l’information : KU Leuven Congres

L’objectif de cette rencontre est d’évaluer l’impact des mobilisations populaires sur le système politique, c’est-à-dire leur capacité à modifier les axes majeurs de la politique et le système politique en lui-même. Ceci nécessite de se demander dans quelle mesure le discours politique populaire parvient à modifier les paramètres de référence de la société politique dans laquelle il s’inscrit et à transformer le langage qui lui donne vie. En d’autres termes, il s’agit d’analyser dans quelles circonstances le discours politique populaire reproduit un langage acquis, sous quelles conditions il est capable de le réélaborer et, en définitive, en quelles circonstances les protestations populaires parviennent à se faire elles-mêmes productrices de langage, donnant naissance à un nouveau langage politique ou modifiant de manière substantielle celui déjà existant.

Durée des communications : 25 minutes

Programme : ici

Informations pratiques :
Roma, 26-28 maggio 2015
École française de Rome
Piazza Navona, 62
00186 – Roma

Vincent Challet (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier III)
Jan Dumolyn (Ghent University)
Hipólito Rafael Oliva Herrer (Universidad de Sevilla)
Fabrizio Ricciardelli (Kent State University)
Andrea Zorzi (Università di Firenze)

Contacts :
École française de Rome
Stéphane Gioanni
Directeur des études médiévales
Grazia Perrino
Secrétariat des études médiévales
secrma@efrome.it

Source : École française de Rome