CALL FOR PAPERS: International Conference Splendid Encounters VI: Correspondence and Information Exchange in Diplomacy (1300-1750)

Nova University of Lisbon
28th — 30th September 2017

Splendid Encounters 6 is one of a series of international and interdisciplinary conferences which aim to bring together scholars from the broadest range of perspectives to consider diplomacy and diplomatic activities in the late medieval and early modern period. After successful meetings in Warsaw, Bath, Florence, Budapest and Prague, we wish to invite you to join us for another event, hosted by Nova University of Lisbon.

Collecting and transferring information is a major aim of diplomacy, and one not confined to diplomats strictly speaking. People of different ranks and functions were still connected to diplomatic activity — ambassadors, nuncios, chargés d’affaires, secretaries and agents, members of ambassadorial households, consuls and merchants, and even the aides employed as middlemen or translators.

Just as varied as the agents were the methods used to obtain access to the latest news and information useful to ruler or country. As diplomatic networks grew bigger and bigger in size and reach in this period, so did the need to find reliable sources of news and to develop ways to efficiently deliver them.

These are some of the issues that will be addressed at the upcoming conference, Splendid Encounters VI. The conference will focus on the role of news and information transmitting in diplomatic practices within and outside Europe between the fourteenth and the eighteenth centuries. In assessing the role of diplomats and networks in such exchanges, this edition of Splendid Encounters also breaks away from traditional chronological and geographical approaches.

Please email by 15 March 2017 to se6.lisbon@gmail.com your abstract for either 20‒minute individual papers or 90‒minute sessions (to comprisea panel, roundtable, project presentation, etc.).

We especially encourage proposals dealing with:

• Diplomatic correspondence: evolution, importance, cyphers, etc.
• Diplomats and diplomacy as a subject of news
• The languages, forms and performance of (written and oral) communication
• East–West/North–South encounters
• Channels of contact; Europe, Africa, Asia, America
• Diplomatic communication across cultures and the culture(s) of diplomatic communication
• Practices of information exchange in empire, states, regions
• The personnel of news networks
• Continuity and change in the long run: from ‘medieval’ to ‘early modern’

Applicants will be notified of acceptance by 15th April.

Contact for general queries Dr Anna Kalinowska: se6.lisbon@gmail.com and for Lisbon arrangements Dr Tiago Viúla de Faria: tiago.faria@fcsh.unl.pt

Call for Submissions: Epistolary Discourse: Letters and Letter-Writing in Early Modern Art

While cultural historians have recently published a number of studies on letters and letter-writing in Early Modern Europe, the subject has not been sufficiently explored from an art historical perspective. Though some texts on Early Modern private life offer insight on the prominence of the theme in art, a more exhaustive analysis is in order, especially since letters and letter-writing are depicted in art in other contexts besides the domestic realm. Indeed Early Modern epistolary discourse falls into both private and public categories. 

In the private sector, the Early Modern period saw a significant increase in literacy, especially among women, mainly due to the development of the printing press and the subsequent proliferation of texts. Women no longer dictated their letters to others, but wrote them themselves. As letter-writers, they could now take on intimate roles, such as that of mothers, lovers, or travelers, without the intrusion of a writing assistant. 

In the public sector, members of the papal curia exchanged letters to publicize new statutes, while spiritual leaders in general often corresponded to offer religious instruction and guidance. 

Travelers wrote letters to inform of their experiences abroad, and merchants used the rhetorical form to exchange information on financial events or to issue letters of credit and other financial instruments. Further, the renewed interest in antiquity during the Renaissance revealed the epistolary discourse of Pliny, Cicero, Seneca, and others, resulting in the revival of humanistic epistles, such as those composed by Erasmus of Rotterdam. 

For the learned, letters could be a form of rhetorical self-fashioning, as often these were made public, revealing the friendships and patronage they enjoyed from powerful individuals. 

No less significant is the fact that a new literary genre emerged at this time: the novel written in epistolary form. Examples include Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s La nouvelle Héloise (1661) and Samuel Richardson’s Pamela or Virtue Rewarded(1740). 

Zephyrus Scholarly Publications LLC is seeking papers for an upcoming anthology on letters and letter-writing in Early Modern art. Papers dealing with any aspect of this theme will be considered. 

Please send a 300 word abstract by July 1, 2017 to Lilian H. Zirpolo at L H Zirpolo (deadline extended).

Cultures of Correspondence, July 2010

Early Modern Studies In Scotland Seminar

A One–Day Colloquium at the Centre for Early Modern Studies

University of Aberdeen, 24^th July 2010

Speakers:

Suzanne Trill           on Women’s Letter-writing in Scotland

Alison Wiggins        on Bess of Hardwick’s Correspondence

James Daybell         on Early Modern Letter Books

Andrew Zurcher      on Letters of the Elizabethan Secretariat

Andrew Gordon       on Purloined Letters at the Elizabethan Court

Kenneth Austin        on Theodore Beza’s Correspondence Networks

To reserve a place please contact a.gordon@abdn.ac.uk

Attendance £10

A limited number of postgraduate travel bursaries are available

For full programme go to www.abdn.ac.uk/emsis

------------------------------------------------------------------

CULTURES OF CORRESPONDENCE: THE CONFERENCE

The One-Day Cultures of Correspondence Colloquium will be followed in 2011 by a conference jointly organised by

Centre for Humanities, Music and Performing Arts at the University of Plymouth &

Centre for Early Modern Studies at the University of Aberdeen.

The conference ‘Cultures of Correspondence in Early Modern Britain, 1550-1640’

will take place at the University of Plymouth 14-16 April 2011,       

The Call For Papers is now available at

http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/schools/hpa        

and at the EMSIS website

www.abdn.ac.uk/emsis

Dr Andrew Gordon

Department of English

Taylor Building

University of Aberdeen