Workshops
The core program of the Mediterranean Studies MRP will consist of three workshops, each held in conjunction with events organized by collaborating institutions. Workshop participants and presenters are invited and encouraged to register for and attend these collaborative events.
Fall Workshop
Saturday 29 October 2011 – University of California Los Angeles
The fall workshop will have the general theme of “Mediterranean Empires.” The featured scholar will be Christophe Picard, Professor of History at the Université de Paris I and co-director of the Mediterranean Studies initiative based there.
This workshop is being organized in conjunction with the international colloquium “Envisioning Empire in the Old World,” to be held on 28 October. This is part of the year-long project, Rivalry and Rhetoric in the Early Modern Mediterranean, directed by the UCLA Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies.
“Envisioning Empire” will consider problems of visual, material, and textual representation of contact zones and encounters among the Mediterranean empires. Topics include: Spain in Italy, Spain on the Ottomans, versions of Lepanto, North African Borderlands, travel writing, captives’ tales, merchants and ambassadors, citational and textual traditions, lingua franca and the problems of communication, and contested spaces on the page and the stage.
Winter Workshop
Friday 3 February 2012 – University of California San Diego
The general rubric for the winter workshop will be “(Re)constructing the Mediterranean Past.” This will be held in conjunction with a one-day conference co-sponsored by the UCMRP on 4 February. A program will be available in Fall 2011.
Spring Workshop
Friday 6 April 2012 – University of Colorado at Boulder
The spring workshop will be held at the University of Colorado at Boulder as part of a new collaboration between the Mediterranean Studies projects at these two institutions. The general theme of the workshop will be “Identities.” This will be the centerpiece of a three-day event which will include a mini-conference organized by the Colorado Mediterranean Studies Group on 5 April and a round table event featuring Peregrine Horden (Royal Holloway, University of London) on 7 April.
The full program will be announced in Fall 2011.
Other Events
The MRP has organized “Was Medieval Portugal Mediterranean?,” a session at the 42nd Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies Meeting, in Lisbon, Portugal on 1 July 2011. Speakers include Brian Catlos, Marisa Costs (U Lisboa), and Antonio Ortega (UNED Spain). Gen Liang (Wheaton) will chair.
We are a co-organizer of “Convergence of the Mediterranean: Commerce, Capital and Trade Routes in the History of a Sea,” the 3rd International Conference on Mediterranean Worlds held from 6-9 September in Salerno, Italy, organized by Luca Zavagno (Eastern Mediterranean University), and featuring Peregrine Horden as keynote and speakers from across North America, Europe and the Mediterranean. Program available here: www.medworlds.org.
In October, the Mediterranean Seminar/UCMRP will welcome Christophe Picard (History, Université de Paris I) as the featured speaker of our Fall Workshop, and is co-sponsoring talks by Professor Picard at UCLA, UCSB, and the University of Southern California.
The Mediterranean Seminar/UCMRP is a co-sponsor with the American Academy of Religion’s Religions in Europe and the Mediterranean World, 500-1650 CE, and Law, Religion, and Culture program units of “Religion and Law in the Medieval Mediterranean World,” a session at the annual meeting of the AAR to be held in San Francisco, 19-22 November 2011. Session organizers are David Freidenreich (Colby College), and Brian Catlos. Speakers include Andrew Salzmann (Boston College), Robert Kevin Jacques (Indiana University), Lena Salaymeh (UC Berkeley), Gerard Wiegers (University of Amsterdam), and Brian Catlos.
We are also co-organizing (with Karla Mallette, University of Michigan) two sessions at the 126th American Historical Association Annual Meeting, to be held in Chicago 6-9 January 2012: “Pirates, State Actors, and Hegemonic Systems in the Pre-modern Mediterranean, Part 1: Hegemony and Legitimacy I: Hegemony and Legitimacy” and “II: Transgressors and Opportunists.” Speakers include Claudia Arno (University of Michigan), David Coleman (Eastern Kentucky University), Marie Kelleher (CSU Long Beach), Stefan Stantchev (Arizona State University), Joshua White (University of Michigan), and Luca Zavagno (Eastern Mediterranean University).
Under the aegis of the Mediterranean Seminar/UCMRP, Brian Catlos and Sharon Kinoshita will co-direct a workshop, “Ethno-Religious Diversity and Cultural Innovation in the Medieval Mediterranean,” to be held at Montecatini, Italy on 21-24 March 2012 at the 13th Mediterranean Research Meeting of the Robert Schuman Centre (European University Institute). The call for papers closes 15 July 2011; limited travel support is available.
Finally, the MRP is sponsoring and organizing “Exile and Expulsion: the End of the Medieval Mediterranean?” a session at the Early Modern Migrations: Exiles, Expulsion, & Religious Refugees, 1400-1700 conference held at the Centre for Renaissances and Reformation Studies, Victoria University (Toronto) 19-20 April 2012. Speakers include Camilo Gomez-Rivas (American University of Cairo), Nan Goodman (University of Colorado at Boulder), and Mary Halavais (Sonoma State).
Full information regarding all of these events will be available soon.