Other conferences
EMPIRE WITHOUT END
A Conference,
Friday, October 31-Saturday, November 1
Network on Ancient and Modern Imperialisms
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perspectives on Empire
Local power and global comparisons
14 May 13.00-18.00, KUA new building: 22.0.47
13.00 Peter Fibiger Bang (Copenhagen):
Welcome and introduction
13.10 Peter Haldén (Stokholm):
The Politics of Imperial Stability: the Conditions of
Viability in European Transoceanic Empires
14.05 Roberta Mazza (Bologna):
Between East and West: Aristocratic Landholding in Late Antique Egypt
15.00 Coffee break
15.30 Walter Scheidel (Stanford):
Rome and Han China
16. 30 Paul Villaume (Copenhagen):
The Liberal ’Empire’ by Invitation: Yet another American Century?
17.30 Refreshments and final discussion
Contact: Peter Fibiger Bang (pbang@hum.ku.dk),
The Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen
-------------------------------------------------------------
War, Empire and Slavery c.1790-1820
Date: 2008-05-16
Description: War, Empire and Slavery c. 1790-1820. Conference at
the University of York, York, UK, 16-18 May 2008. We invite
colleagues to attend a conference which explores the
revolutionary and Napoleonic wars as the first world war, a war
which touched every continent of the globe. For the full
programme and...
Contact: war@events.york.ac.uk
See more
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CLASSICAL EMPIRES IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE
ONE-DAY CONFERENCE
Friday 23 May 2008
Rm 106, Gordon House, University College London
Sponsored by the Classical Reception Studies Network and the Department of Greek and Latin at University College London.
There is no registration fee for this conference, and all are welcome to attend.
Programme
10.15-10.45 Coffee
10.45-11.00
Welcome & Introduction
Maria Wyke & Chiara Thumiger (University College London)
11.00-12.30 Panel 1
‘Reviving classical knowledge while writing about globalization’
Richard Hingley, (University of Durham)
‘Writing empires: neo-liberalism and the ends of civilization’
Richard Alston (Royal Holloway, University of London)
‘Empire, States of Exception, and Iustitium. Augustus and Agamben’
Ahuvia Kahane (Royal Holloway, University of London)
12.30-2.00 Lunch Break
2.00-3.30 Panel 2
‘The last Shah at Persepolis: The Iranian use of the Persian past 1960-2007’, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (University of Edinburgh)
‘Hollywood versus Ahmadinejad: conquering the east in the third-millennial western cinema’, Edith Hall (Royal Holloway, University of London)
‘Xena versus the Romans: Anti-imperialism in Xena Warrior Princess’
Amanda Potter (Open University)
3.30-4.00 Tea and Coffee
4.00-5.30 Panel 3
‘Athens and America: Comparing Empires in The New York Times’,
Adam Goldwyn (City University of New York)
‘The decline and fall of the Roman empire and its place in American political discourse’
Leslie Dodd (University of Glasgow)
‘Greeks and Persians all over again? The intellectualisation 0f imperial metaphors in contemporary politics’
Naoise Mac Sweeney (University of Cambridge)
5.30-6.00 Round Table Discussion
A limited number of bursaries to aid postgraduate students to attend the conference may be available. If you have any further queries, please contact Maria Wyke at UCL (m.wyke@ucl.ac.uk).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abstracts from the conference:
Court Cultures in the Muslim World: Politics and Patronage (7th 19th Centuries)
Research Centre Gotha for Cultural and Social Studies (FGE); Institute
of Islamic Studies of Erfurt University
02.07.2007-05.07.2007, Gotha, Schloss Friedenstein
Bericht von:
Albrecht Fuess, Universität Erfurt/ Université de Tours
E-Mail: albrecht.fuess@uni-erfurt.de
Courts and the complex phenomenon of the Courtly societies have received
intensified interest in academic research over the last three decades,
especially due to the pioneering work of Norbert Elias from 1969. For
various reasons however, so far the field of Muslim Court Culture has
been almost neglected, if we compare it to the huge amount of detailed
studies on European Court Culture. Whereas in the European case scholars
of different academic disciplines can rely on a vast variety of
different studies to move towards comparative and, thus, more structural
questions, research in Muslim Court Cultures did not yet surpass the
level of studies of individual courts.
The Gotha conference therefore attempted to provide a first structural
overview of the state-of-the-art of research on different aspects of
courts and courtly life in the Muslim World from the earliest times to
the 19th century. Therefore, the Research Centre Gotha for Cultural and
Social Studies (FGE) and the Institute of Islamic Studies of Erfurt
University have invited international scholars to an International
Conference on Court Culture in the Muslim World.
Hardly any other place in Germany is more qualified to host such a
conference than the Baroque Schloss Friedenstein at Gotha. The Library
of Schloss Friedenstein is in possession of the third largest collection
of Oriental manuscripts in Germany. The impressive collection of Islamic
manuscripts in Gotha is in itself an indicator of European Court
Culture, as the manuscripts were collected by the German scholar Ulrich
Jasper Seetzen (d. 1811) at the turn of the 19th century by order of
Duke Ernest II (1772-1804) of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Seetzen undertook a
research expedition to the Middle East from where he dispatched, among
others, more than 2.500 Oriental manuscripts from Istanbul, Aleppo,
Damascus, Jerusalem, and Cairo to Gotha, before finally disappearing
under unclear circumstances in Yemen in 1811.
Over fifty international participants were present at the conference at
Schloss Friedenstein. In order to approach the conference theme from the
broadest possible perspective the participants disposed either over a
large variety of specialist expertise on different regions and different
time periods within Islamic societies or were scholars working on rather
�timeless� aspects like the role of natural sciences or art in different
Muslim empires and time periods. Especially the latter contributions
were meant to underline the transdisciplinary approach of the
conference.
The inaugural speech of STEFAN LEDER (Halle) on �courtly dishes� in the
Muslim world highlighted the role of food in literary texts and courtly
contexts in medieval Muslim societies and did touch already numerous
methodological questions which would be followed up during the
conference. At the beginning of the second day the organizers presented
their initial thematic and structural thoughts. Sessions I (The Prophet
and the Caliphate), II (Local Forms of the Representation of Rulers) and
IV (Muslim Court Culture between the 16th and 19th centuries) then
explored regional and historical case studies throughout Islamic
societies. This part of the programme was opened by the paper of Michael
Cook (Princeton) who asked if the Prophet did keep court in Medina. He
argued that the ruling practice of the prophet did not resemble a court
culture at all, especially in terms of the easy accessibility of the
prophet. Following case studies then showed that Muslim rulers later on
very often limited and canalised their accessibility by special court
ceremonials. Afterwards, the courts of the great Islamic dynasties of
the Ummayyads and the Abbasids were discussed. After the conquest of
Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258 the Islamic Empire fell finally apart and
new forms of local rule emerged which brought with them specific forms
of royal representation at local courts. Central aspects of these more
historical presentations were questions of religious legitimacy of
Muslim rulers, terminologies for court culture in Oriental languages,
concepts of space for royal representation, accessibility of rulers and
the growing influence of European courts as role models from the 18th
century onwards. The participants found the broad variety of themes,
stretching from South Asia to Spain, from the judiciary practice of
rulers to aspects of royal clothing very enriching.
The second major part of the conference was devoted to comparatistic
approaches. The aims of the Sessions III (Patronage, Science and
Literature) and V (Patronage, Arts and Architecture) lied therein to
show transcultural phenomena which were present at many different Muslim
courts in different time periods, especially looking at the role of
religious scholars, natural science, literature, art and architecture at
Muslim courts. Quite often the role of the court as a financially strong
catalyst for science and art was highlighted in these contributions.The
scientific aim of the conference was to gather manifold aspects of
Muslim court culture in order to systemize them in an analytical
process. Of course no ideal Muslim court can be reconstructed after the
holding of the first conference of its kind. However, the questions
raised during the conference certainly present an important step towards
that direction. Many underlying structures will hopefully come to light
in the process of analyzing the findings of the conference by publishing
the proceedings.
Hopefully one will then learn more about questions of religious
legitimacy and try to explain what makes a Muslim court Islamic? Who
represents the ideal of Muslim rulers in their court culture? Is it
constituted by the Prophet or the Caliphs of Damascus and Baghdad? We
know that from the 14th century onwards the Macedonian ruler
Alexander/Iskander gains of great importance as the prototype of a
Muslim ruler through the increasing popularity of the Alexander romance.
Other central points of the conference were the dichotomy of tent and
palace, the role of military slavery at Muslim courts, the function of
the harem and the quest for appropriate terminologies for Muslim court
culture. All these aspects were dealt with at Gotha and we hope to
present the final findings of the conference to a wider scientific
audience through the publication of a proceedings volume in the near
future.
The conference was kindly funded by the German Science Foundation (DFG).
For the complete conference programme, short abstracts and additional
information see: www.uni-erfurt.de/islamwissenschaft/courtculture2007 or
contact Jan-Peter Hartung (Jh74@soas.ac)
and Albrecht Fuess (albrecht.fuess@uni-erfurt.de)
URL zur Zitation dieses Beitrages
HYPERLINK "http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=1743" http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=1743
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Copyright (c) 2007 by H-Net and Clio-online, all rights reserved. This
>work may be copied and redistributed for non-commercial, educational use
>if proper credit is given to the author and to the list. For other
>permission, please contact H-SOZ-U-KULT@H-NET.MSU.EDU.
>
>_________________________________________________
> HUMANITIES - SOZIAL- UND KULTURGESCHICHTE
>H-SOZ-U-KULT@H-NET.MSU.EDU
>Redaktion:
>E-Mail: hsk.redaktion@geschichte.hu-berlin.de
>WWW: HYPERLINK "http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de" http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de
>_________________________________________________
>