Cultures of Knowledge: An Intellectual Geography of the Seventeenth-Century Republic of Letters

Further to the CFP (which is now closed), full details are now available for the conference The Global Dimensions of European Knowledge, 1450-1700, which will take place at Birkbeck, University of London on 24–25 June 2011. The conference will investigate the impact of European exploration and travel on the structures, contents and sources of authority of European knowledge c.1450-1700, seeking to explore connections between the making of knowledge and a broad range of intellectual, political, cultural, religious and mercantile encounters between Europe and the wider world. For keynotes, panels, abstracts, and speaker biographies, please visit the conference website.

Updated to include confirmed speakers and link to full CFP

Papers are invited for a conference on ‘The Global Dimensions of European Knowledge, 1450-1700’, which will take place at Birkbeck, University of London on 24-5 June 2011. The conference will investigate the impact of European exploration and travel on the structures, contents and sources of authority of European knowledge c.1450-1700, seeking to explore connections between the making of knowledge and a broad range of intellectual, political, cultural, religious and mercantile encounters between Europe and the wider world. It aims to bring together scholars from different disciplines working on any aspect of European knowledge that included an extra-European dimension. Forms of knowledge under consideration include ethnology, natural history, botany, natural philosophy, geography, cartography, medicine and chronology. Confirmed speakers include Professor Felipe Fernández-Armesto (Notre Dame), Professor Pamela Smith (Columbia), Dr Joan-Pau Rubiés (London School of Economics), Professor Ricardo Padrón (Virginia), Professor Nicolás Wey-Gómez (Brown), Dr Michiel van Groesen (Amsterdam), and Professor Peter Burke (Cambridge). The deadline for proposals is 31 July 2010; for further details and submission instructions, see the full call for papers.

Papers are sought for an interdisciplinary graduate conference on ‘Intellectual Exchange and Networks in Europe, 1500-1660: Approaches from the Humanities and Social Sciences’, due to take place at the University of Chicago on 7-8 May 2010. Featuring keynote contributions from Denis Crouzet and Peter N. Miller, the conference will explore how ideas moved through Europe between 1500 and 1660, with a particular emphasis on social networks, trade routes, epistolary webs, and multiple forms of literary transmission. The conference will also consider the movement of ideas in the present. The deadline for the receipt of 250-word abstracts is 30 November 2009; for further details and submission instructions, see H-Net.

Contributions are sought for a workshop on ‘Intellectual Networks and Exchanges’, due to take place at Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge on 1-2 July 2010. Building on the methodological redefinition of ‘exchanges’ and of ‘networks’ which has occurred in the past three decades, the workshop will investigate cultural and intellectual networks and exchanges of ideas from the late medieval to the modern period. It will pay particular attention to the role of sources, historical factors, geography, images, and ideologies in creating, fostering, and preserving communicative practices, especially within colonial settings. For further information, please see the workshop webpage or contact the organizer, Dr Isabel DiVanna.