Mediterranean Spring School 2024

This Spring School 2024 brings together researchers and students from Konstanz and abroad. Starting with key note lectures by distinguished experts of individual epochs (Antiquity, Middle Ages, Early Modern Period, 19th-21st century), we will analyse crucial problems of Mediterranean history on the basis of selected sources and literature: processes of imperial expansion and techniques of imperial governance, the emergence and relationship of monotheistic religions as well as the infrastructural preconditions and cultural practices of different forms of mobility (e.g. pilgrimage, tourism and migration). Therefore, our guiding questions are as follows:

1. What kinds of spatial orders did empires, religions and mobilities establish?
2. How did empires manage diversity?
3. How did religions function within imperial frameworks?
4. What kind of mobilities did empires and religions produce?

By looking at the similarities and differences, transfers and transitions between different periods, we aim to identify phenomena of long duration, reciprocal references, ruptures and turning points in order to understand what constituted and transformed the Mediterranean across the ages.
The Spring School is primarily aimed at advanced BA students from various disciplines (e.g., History, Islamic, Jewish or Ottoman studies, Arabic or Romance studies) who are interested in the new Master’s program Mediterranean History at the University of Konstanz, which is expected to start in the winter term 2024/25.

Application deadline expired.

Programme

Tuesday, 19 March 2024
University of Konstanz, Room K 07

Arrival of External Participants

17:00        Welcome & Introduction 

17:30        Presentation of new Master Program "Mediterranean History"       

18:30        Snacks

Wednesday, 20 March 2024
University of Konstanz, Room K 07

Ancient Mediterranean
 

09:00       Introductory Lecture: Ulrich Gotter
                    Communities, the Empire and the Sea

10:00        Group Work with Sources (Marc Gehrmann & Ulrich Gotter)

12:00         Lunch at Mensa
 

Medieval Mediterranean
 

13:00         Introductory Lecture: Eric Böhme
                    The Medieval Mediterranean: From Arabic-Islamic to Latin-Christian Expansionism

14:00         Group Work with Sources (Eric Böhme, Alejandro Peláez Martín & James Wilson)

16:30          Bus to Konstanz 

17:00          Guided Historical Walking Tour of Konstanz

18:30          Venue: Bischofsvilla, Otto-Adam-Str. 5, 78467 Konstanz
                      in cooperation with Centre for Cultural Inquiry (ZKF):
                      Key note speech: Prof. Dr. Gudrun Krämer (Berlin)
                      A Land Without People for a People Without Land?
                      Palestine from Ottoman to British Rule

20:00          Dinner at Konstanzer Wirtshaus

Thursday, 21 March 2024
University of Konstanz, Room K 07

Early Modern Mediterranean
 

09:00        Introductory Lecture:
                    Jovo Miladinović
                    The Adriatic, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Change of Imperial Orders:
                     Perspectives from Venice, Istanbul and the Margins (16th-18th centuries)
                  
10:00         Group Work with Sources (Achim Landwehr & Jovo Miladinović)

12:00          Lunch at Mensa
 

Modern & Contemporary Mediterranean
 

13:00           Keynote Lecture: Manuel Borutta & Sven Reichardt
                      Mare Nostrum 2.0: Genealogy of the Present

14:00           Group Work with Sources (Manuel Borutta, Sven Reichardt & Ann-Sophie Andelfinger)

16:00           Coffee Break

16:30           Conclusions and Feedback

17:30            End