Agenda
Workshop ‘Spaces of Formal and Informal Diplomacy in the Premodern Mediterranean’ – pre-registration requested
The members of the DiplomatiCon Project (Power in History: Centre for Political History, and Centre for Urban History), in cooperation with the Research Network ‘Routes and Roots in Colonial and Global History’ of the N.W. Posthumus Institute are glad to announce the two-day interdisciplinary workshop on ‘Spaces of formal and informal diplomacy in the Premodern Mediterranean’, to be held on 18 and 19 September 2025 in Antwerp. Among the presenters will be a considerable number of Posthumus PhDs and Posthumus fellows. Keynote speaker will be Professor Zoltán Biedermann (University College London).
This workshop aims to reappraise the Mediterranean space, taking into consideration the various actors and institutions that have been in contact or have been involved with the sea during the medieval and early modern periods. The goal is to question and nuance the great narratives of the Sea, and to break this single space into appropriate units of analysis. Several aspects have been looked at in the definition or delimitation of this Mediterranean space—geography, ecology, politics, religion or economy—that are usually taken separately and independently of each other. This workshop aims to bring nuance to the issue by shifting the perspective from monolithic concepts to actor-oriented emergent patterns. Instead of imposing definitions from the outside, it seeks to identify various spaces and their limits from within. The focus will be on exploring how spaces were produced and experienced by the actors themselves, the institutions and structures that facilitated this production, how these spaces were perceived and communicated to a broader audience, and potential variation in the permanence of different types of spaces and their uses; the workshop aims to complement traditional research by applying quantitative methods, spatial analysis, and GIS.
Participation in the workshop is free, but prior registration is requested. You can register by sending an e-mail to the Diplomaticon project.
