The Experience of Neighbourliness in Europe,
c. 1000-1600
Bath Spa University, 17-18 May, 2012
Many historians of the early modern neighbourhood have argued that religious reform and the emergence of the state ousted caritas from the parish. The psychological pressures of confessional conflict, and the challenges of poor relief, may have also polarised identities, whilst humanist ideas emanating from Italy fuelled the rise of possessive individualism. In the work of Norbert Elias and Stephen Greenblatt, the early modern individual emerged from the debris of a broken medieval ‘community’. The Conference aims to confront such perspectives, and to explore the ideologies and anxieties of the pre-modern locality. Significant discussions of neighbourhood, family and friendship occurred amongst scholars in the 1980s, but these debates have been neglected in recent research. This conference will contribute to cross boundaries usually observed by medieval and early modern historians, identifying continuity in social relations as well as difference.
This Call for Papers aims to attract contributions on medieval and sixteenth-century neighbourhood living through studies of the etymologies of the word neighbour, through explorations of religious and ethnic differences within communities, and by consideration of the influence of endemic disease on settlements and relations within them; it is hoped that the demands of worship, poor relief and charity on neighbours will also attract contributions. Themes for papers include: the neighbourhood as a centre of consumption; spatial proximity; religious houses as neighbours; housing, domesticity and the built environment; affect and emotion; friendship and intimacy; custom and memory; neighbourliness and gender; the Reformations and neighbourliness; neighbours of difference.
Support has been provided by the Leverhulme Trust, the Economic History Society, the Royal Historical Society, and Bath Spa University. A number of bursaries will be available for postgraduate students. The Conference will take place at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, 16-18 Queen Square, Bath.
Please send abstracts of around 300 words for 20-minute papers to Dr Bronach Kane at .
Deadline for abstracts is 16 October 2011.
Confirmed speakers already include:
Prof. Caroline Barron, Royal Holloway, University of London
Prof. James Bolton, Queen Mary, University of London
Prof. Samuel K. Cohn, University of Glasgow
Dr Ian Forrest, Oriel College, Oxford
Prof. Katherine French, University of Michigan
Prof. Beat Kümin, University of Warwick
Prof. Marjorie McIntosh, University of Colorado at Boulder
Prof. Miri Rubin, Queen Mary, University of London
Prof. Phillipp Schofield, Aberystwyth University
Prof. Naomi Tadmor, Lancaster University