Cultures of Conflict Resolution in Early Modern Europe

Cultures of conflict resolution in early modern Europe
University of Cambridge, 4 May 2012
Disputes, discord and reconciliation are part of the fabric of communal living. Early modern Europe was no exception. Indeed, in a time when enmity could be, in John Bossy’s words, 'a force', 'personal, face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball . . . a formal and public condition’ conflict was especially prominent. However, the ways in which disputes and discord were dealt with could vary from person to person, and from one culture to the next. The methods and resources available to pursue enmities, to make peace and resolve conflict could depend on gender, social standing and age. Reconciliation could be both a formal and informal process. The pursuit of conflict resolution, moreover, could involve whole villages, and all manner of personnel including local magistrates, legal faculties, priests, government officials and the nobility. It was a communal affair.
It was also a deeply gendered process. Men and women had different methods of pursuing peacemaking, could be involved in different types of conflict, and often had highly different experiences of the process.
This conference seeks to trace cultural codes of conflict resolution in the early modern world. How did these vary from man to woman, old to young, and village to village? What methods of peace-making were available, and to whom? How did courts work? What were the languages of conflict and reconciliation, and who had recourse to them? What role did emotions, factions and the law play in conflict resolution? Did ‘official’ ideas of conflict resolution clash with local ones?
We also plan to investigate the relationship that study of dispute resolution has with chronologies of change in the early modern world. The end of feud and the triumph of law and the state has often been seen as the mark of modernity. Norbert Elias’s ‘civilizing process’ was tied to the restraint of violence, and Weber’s ‘monopoly of violence’ is still referred to often in histories of the state. Can new histories of conflict resolution provide revised accounts of processes of ‘civilization’, emotional ‘restraint’, and state formation? We are, moreover, keen to forge global connections and comparisons. Are there specifically Christian aspects to most Western conflict resolution that differ in, for example, the Islamic world? How did burgeoning states outside of Europe deal with the disruptive effects of feuding?
Finally, this conference will provide an occasion to reflect on the seminal volume edited by John Bossy Disputes and Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the West, published almost thirty years ago. How have the last three decades of historiography changed perspectives, methodologies and approaches? What has the impact of interdisciplinary influences been?
We hope to assemble around 10 speakers who are in the early stages of their academic career. We are interested in a variety of approaches to, and aspects on, conflict resolution in the early modern world. Please submit paper proposals (500-750 words) by 31 December 2011. Invitations to present at the colloquium will be given by 31 January 2012.
Send paper proposals to the convenors Stephen Cummins stc28@cam.ac.uk and Laura Kounine lk279@cam.ac.uk by 31 December 2011.

2012-2013 FELLOWSHIPS AT THE HUNTINGTON

The Huntington is an independent research center with extensive holdings in British and American history, literature, art history, and the history of science and medicine, with the collections ranging chronologically from the eleventh century to the present. The Huntington will award to scholars over one hundred fellowships for the academic year 2012-2013. These fellowships derive from a variety of funding sources and have different terms. Recipients of all fellowships are expected to be in continuous residence at the Huntington and to participate in and make a contribution to its intellectual life.
NEH FELLOWSHIPS offer stipends of up to $50,400 for four to twelve months.
BARBARA THOM POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS are intended to support a non-tenured faculty member who is revising a manuscript for publication, carrying a stipend of $50,000 for nine to twelve months.
THE MELLON FELLOWSHIP is for nine to twelve months with a stipend of $50,000. THE DANA AND DAVID DORNSIFE FELLOWSHIP is for nine to twelve months with a stipend of $50,000.
HUNTINGTON RESEARCH AWARDS are for one to five months and carry monthly stipends of $2,500.
TRAVEL GRANTS AND EXCHANGE FELLOWSHIPS FOR STUDY IN GREAT BRITAIN are offered to support U.S.-based cholars in any of the fields in which the Huntington collections are strong and where the research will be carried out in Great Britain. We also offer exchange fellowships with Linacre College and Lincoln College, Oxford.
THE DIBNER HISTORY OF SCIENCE PROGRAM offers historians of science and technology the opportunity to study in the Burndy Library and the other history of science and technology resources at the Huntington. Both long- and short-term fellowships are available.
The deadline for submitting an application is December 15, 2011. For more details and instructions on how to apply, visit our website at http://www.huntington.org.

Graduate Conference on the History of the Body - Washington University in St. Louis

Graduate Conference on the History of the Body
October 20th- October 22nd, 2011
Washington University in St. Louis, Danforth Campus
The Graduate History Association at Washington University in St. Louis is pleased to announce the inaugural Graduate Conference on the History of the Body, to be held October 20-22 on the Danforth Campus in St. Louis.
In 2001, Roy Porter remarked that body history had become the "historiographical dish of the day." Ten years on, histories of the body continue to flourish. Often working at the interstices of a number of methods and approaches, the field has produced innovative and compelling articulations of the body as a category of historical analysis. As thinking about bodies has occasioned ongoing encounters, clashes, and border-crossings between a variety of disciplines, this conference aims to promote conversations across scholarly divides by showcasing and reflecting on graduate-level scholarship on the history of the body, in all periods and regions, and from a variety of methodological approaches. The keynote address will open the conference at 4:00 on Thursday, October 20, and panels will be delivered on Friday, October 21 and Saturday, October 22. Please see the attached program for full details.
Professor Mary Fissell, renowned historian of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University, will deliver the Keynote Address in conjunction with the Washington University in St. Louis Department of History Colloquium Series: “Blood Will Out: Kinship, The Body, and Popular Medicine, 1750-1860,” at 4 pm in Busch Hall Room 100 on the Danforth Campus. Please join us for an open reception immediately following in Busch 18.
There are no registration fees for this conference, but pre-registration is available through our website: www.history.artsci.wustl.edu/GHA/Conference

Entering the Gate of Felicity: Diplomatic Representation of Christian Powers in Early Modern Istanbul

International conference organised by the project group “Ottoman Orient and East Central Europe” at the Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum Geschichte und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas (GWZO); Leipzig, 14th–16th October 2011
14 October
18:00 Keynote lecture
Peter Burschel (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin): Westliche Gesandte in Istanbul:
Beobachtungen eines historischen Anthropologen
15 October
9:00–10:30 Panel I , Chair: Sabine Jagodzinski (GWZO)
Gunes Işıksel (Collège de France, Paris): Resident Ambassadors as the Agents of the Ottoman State?
Anikó Kellner (Central European University, Budapest): Amicitia: A Key Term of Diplomacy at the Sublime Porte
Dennis Dierks (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena): Die Sprache(n) des Friedens: Zur Reichweite der Okzidentalisierung europäisch-osmanischer Friedensverträge im 18. Jahrhundert
11:00–13:00 Panel II, Chair: Dietlind Hüchtker (GWZO)
Radu G. Păun (CERCEC, EHESS, Paris): “A Never Ending Flow”. The Gift-Giving Vocabulary of the 16th Century Venetian Diplomats in Constantinople
Lovro Kunčević (Institute for Historical Sciences in Dubrovnik of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts): Antemurale Christianitatis and the Most Loyal Servant of the Sultan: The Discourses of Ragusan Diplomacy
Tatjana Trikic (Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main): Subversive Sovereigns? The Exchange of Gifts and Letters between Elisabeth I and Valide Sultan Safiye
Will Smiley (Law School, Yale University): Negotiating Freedom: Russian Diplomats and the Freeing of Ottoman Slaves, 1739–1794
14:30–16:00 Panel III, Chair: Winfried Eberhard (GWZO)
Stephan Theilig (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin): Friedrich II. und Carl Adolf von Rexin als Bittsteller an der Hohen Pforte
Sándor Papp (Szeged University): Zwei Modelle des Gesandtschaftswesens: Habsburg und Siebenbürgen
Nedim Zahirović (GWZO): Der osmanische Beglerbeg zu Ofen: Der Wandel des Amtes anhand der Analyse der diplomatischen Geschenke
16:30–18:30 Panel IV, Chair: Arno Strohmeyer (Paris Lodron Universität Salzburg)
Dóra Kerekes (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest): War die „geheime Korrespondenz“ der Habsburger im Osmanischen Reich während der frühen Neuzeit ein Geheimdienst?
Emrah Safa Gürkan (Georgetown University, Washington DC): The Diplomatic Function of Espionage: The Case of Habsburg Renegados in 16th Century Constantinople
Cecilia Tarruell (EHESS, Paris): Hispanic Monarchy’s agents at the Sublime Porte and the Muslim world at the end of 16th Century
Ovidiu Cristea (Nicolae Iorga Institute of History, Bucharest): An Unusual Diplomatic Episode: The Conversion to Islam of Prince Iliaş Rareş of Moldavia in 1551
16 October
9:30–11:00 Panel V, Chair: Andreas Puth (GWZO)
Tetiana Grygorieva (Mohyla Academy, Kiev): Ottoman Palace Ceremonial: Translated and Edited by Polish-Lithuanian Ambassadors
Michał Wasiucionek (European University Institute, Florence): Hermeneutics of Ceremonial Lore: Glimpses of the Idealized Diplomatic Protocol as revealed in the Polish-Lithuanian diplomatic accounts (1677–1763)
Ernst Petritsch (Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Wien): Von Bittstellern zu gleichrangigen Diplomaten: Zeremonielle Fragen bei der Behandlung habsburgischer Gesandter
11:30–13:30 Panel VI, Chair: Peter Burschel (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin)
Pascal Firges (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg): The Ottoman Empire in the Eyes of a Revolutionary Diplomat
Petr Štěpánek (The Embassy of the Czech Republic, Ankara): The Household of the Habsburg Ambassador Heřman Černín at His First Embassy 1616–1618
Robert Born (GWZO): Chronisten, Vermittler und Unternehmer. Beobachtungen zu den Künstlern im Gefolge der diplomatischen Delegationen nach Konstantinopel
Gábor Kármán (GWZO): Diplomats in Chains: Imprisoning Transylvanian Envoys at the Sublime Porte