Rethinking Europe - War and Peace in the Early Modern German Lands

Datum: 
Donnerstag, 8. März 2018 bis Samstag, 10. März 2018
Ort: 
St. Louis [Missouri], USA
Deadline: 
Dienstag, 15. August 2017

The Thirty Years' War will be the prism through which the conference will look back at the Reformation and forward toward developments in the decades that followed. The conference will (re)consider the position and significance of the Thirty Years' War in the context of Reformation history. For example, do events in the sixteenth century look different in light of the war's eruption and resolution? How does this event fit into the larger century of armed conflict in Europe, e.g., the reforming movements, the "Long Turkish War," the changing balance of power around the Baltic.

At the same time, peaceful periods and the desire for peace also figured prominently in this conflictridden age. Between the Fall of Constantinople (1453) and the Siege of Vienna (1683), Europe made its way into the modern world. The conference will ponder the role and shape of religion, politics, economics, law, art, gender, theological and philosophical thinking, literature, and music in this age of war and peace that has often been characterized as the foundation of modern Europe. It proposes to look at war and peace from the sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, and, in the process, to review the research of the past years and explore the historical, social, economic, literary, and artistic dimensions with a multi-disciplinary approach.

Topics might include:

-   Current Research on War and Peace

-   New directions in Military History

-   The Reformation and the Thirty Years' War

-   Popular History and War/Peace Experiences (Autobiographical Accounts)

-   Material Objects, Cultural Transfer, and War

-   Victim narratives: Captives, Jews, Slaves, etc.

-   War and Peace as Media events

-   Cities in War

-   Gender in/and War

-   Discourses of War and Peace in Literature

-   War, Peace, and the Development of Law and Diplomacy

-   War, Technology, and Innovation

-   War, Science, and Knowledge

-   Realities after the Treaties were Signed

-   New Turns and the War

-   Material and Environmental Consequences of War

Group proposals as well as individual submissions are welcome, but please bear in mind the essential interdisciplinary objective when proposing panels (three papers and a chair or moderator). Please send your contact information and an abstract of no more than 250 words per paper to fni@wustl.edu.

Papers may be in English or German.

Depending on budget, there may be travel support available for graduate students. 

Conference Venue:  Washington University in St. Louis (TBA)

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Contact:

Dr. Christian Schneider

Washington University in St. Louis

Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures

christianschneider@wustl.edu