Spaces and Places of Religious Knowledge Transfer in Early Modern Cities

Description and Aim

Spaces and Places of Religious Knowledge Transfer in Early Modern Cities: Developing New Methods for Historical Research and Analysis

“Spatial approaches” is a seminal concept that is expected to determine the research agenda in historical and social research in the coming decennia. However, the relevance of the places, spaces, social dynamics, communicative practices and bodies in motion connected to them and with which they functioned is still often underestimated, especially for the study of early modern societies. Next to this lack of specific attention in early modern historical scholarship, the application of spatial categories for large-scale comparative approaches in the historical humanities and in combination with digital and visual applications have seldom been discussed and been chosen as starting point for collaborative research projects.

A group of international scholars from the humanities, the spatial and social sciences (with experience in the application of digital techniques) will address during the workshop “Space and Place” as an innovative and interdisciplinary methodological category for historical research into the early modern period and will discuss its practical application for the analysis of the transmission of (religious) knowledge in historical societies, including its social dynamics, and the potential of new digital research and mapping projects for the study of early modern societies on a large European scale.

The workshop aims to achieve the following goals:

1. Innovating historical research into the early modern period (c. 1400-c.1600) by the further development of “Spaces and Place”, most notably “Spaces and Places of (Religious) Knowledge Transfer”, as multidisciplinary approach for historical research and analysis by fostering an exchange between the newest perspectives in spatial theory and historical research;

2. Based on the discussions of the colloquium, the participants will draw an innovative, multi-, interdisciplinary and transnational research agenda crossing traditional disciplinary boundaries, connecting Dutch and European historians with researchers from the fields of spatial and social sciences;

3. This research agenda will be at the basis of a new European collaborative research projects, connecting the Dutch research community working on early modern history with European research groups working on “Space and Place”, “Religious Knowledge Transfer”, “Lieux de savoir” and “Urban Socio-Spatial Dynamics”.