In the Face of Destruction: Historical Memory and the Preservation of the Past in the Early Modern Period

28-29 octobre 2016, Pennsylvania

State College, Pennsylvania
CFP Deadline:  1 Mar 2016

Penn State's Committee for Early Modern Studies (CEMS) is organizing a symposium, “In the Face of Destruction,” with the aim of inspiring discussion about the historical roots of cultural devastation.

We seek papers that take on the themes of destruction and subsequent preservation, writ larger than the iconoclastic acts that immediately come to mind. Defining the early modern period broadly in temporal terms (1300-1800) and geographic expanse, this symposium seeks to unite a number of topics related to destruction and preservation including iconoclasm, collecting practices, censorship, the Inquisition, warfare, extirpation campaigns, disease, historical suppression/erasure, martyrologies, natural disasters, commerce, and their related ethical dimensions. We hope to expand this theme to form a broader conceptual framework that includes “non-western” traditions, frontier regions, and colonial contexts. The natural corollary to destruction and its consequences for peoples and nations – human agency and initiative amid crises – are also of analytical interest.

Keynote and Plenary speakers will include:

Brian Rose (Professor of Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania)
Alisha Rankin (Associate Professor of History, Tufts University)
Barbara Mundy (Professor of Art History, Fordham University)

To apply, please email a 200 word abstract (with paper title) and a current CV to FoDSymposium -at- gmail.com by March 1, 2016 as a single pdf document. Please include a subject heading of “CEMS Symposium Proposal” in the email.

For further details, visit: https://www.earlymod.psu.edu/comingevents.html