"WissensWelten": Early Modern Period Conference in Gotha

The theme "WissensWelten" (Worlds of Knowledge) addresses early modern history as a history of knowledge, and does so from two central aspects: Firstly, the conference theme focuses on knowledge culturesand milieus, on the interaction of different types of knowledge, on its ties to status and gender and its circulation in networks and media. In the past decade, the history of knowledge has developed rapidly into its own sub-discipline, with the founding of journals, handbooks and differentiated questions and methodological approaches. This needs to be reflected upon, also with regard to new possibilities, problems and limits of the concept. On the other hand, the term WissensWelten aims to globalise and decentralise our perspective, to knowledge in and from other regions of the world. Global knowledge history poses the question of the connections and non-connections of knowledge worlds, of isolation or penetration, of transfer or the refusal of transfer. The conference thus addresses the methodological and conceptual problem of what interconnectedness can mean in relation to knowledge. Thus "WissensWelten" means both: knowledge cultures and global knowledge history.

The conference theme reflects both the focus of the Gotha Research Centre on the history of knowledge and the extensive collections in the former residential city of Gotha. In accompanying guided tours, curators from the Gotha Research Library and the Friedenstein Foundation Gotha will provide an insight into the respective collections, which include Duke Ernst II's lecture notes on physics as well as imported chinoiseries, vocabulary lists of the oriental traveller Ulrich Jasper Seetzen and minute books of the local Masonic lodge.

The conference in Gotha will cover a wide range of topics and include events on both European and non-European knowledge cultures and the links between them. How did knowledge 'travel', 'wander' or 'circulate' between different cultures? To what extent do different legal systems overlap, fertilise and interfere with each other when it comes to seafaring? What role do ignorance, isolation and misunderstanding play in intercultural encounters? How do diplomats actually react to the unexpected? Lecture sections will focus on the early modern prison as a world of knowledge as well as the city of Venice as an "information node and knowledge stack" and the friendship albums of early modern scholars, in which mobility, networks and discourses become visible. Renowned early modern historian Sanjay Subrahmanyam from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has been invited to give the keynote lecture. His evening lecture will focus on the connection between "Warfare, Botany and Philology" with regard to European-Asian encounters in the 17th century. The discussion in the discipline will be stimulated in particular by the two panel events, which are dedicated to the contribution of early modern research to the debate on colonial pasts and the potential of global history of knowledge. A section on the early modern period in research communication and public history will discuss the impact of the discipline on the wider public.

The conference will be organised by 68 speakers and section heads, including historians from the UK, Sweden, Italy, Chile and the USA, who will present their theses for discussion and jointly formulate new research questions in 15 sections and two panel discussions. A total of around 200 guests are expected to attend.

The detailed programme can be found on our conference website.