Conférence : “The reception of antiquity in Early Modern Times: Historiography and Antiquarianism in Britain and Germany compared”

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Dido building Carthage, or The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire, 1815, oil on canvas, 155.5 x 230 cm, London, National Gallery.

Type : Conférence
Dates : 31 août – 2 septembre 2017
Lieu : University of Bayreuth, History Department/Prinz-Albert-Society, Coburg, Germany

The different views of antiquity, of one’s own, regional or local classical history and of ‘antique‘ remains in various parts of Europe – and, in a comparative perspective, beyond – have received a growing interest both in Britain and on the continent in recent years. And while it seems fair to say that overarching narratives of European Renaissance and Humanism, of transnational Baroque scholarship and Enlightenment remain dominant, we have come to a much more refined view of the different attitudes to “Antiquities“ and “the Antique“ in various parts of Early Modern Europe.

And it is not only those attitudes that were remarkably varied: behind them, different political and social conditions of scholarship in general and of individual historians and antiquaries in particular deserve close study. However, a comparison between Britain and Germany has rarely been sought, and in filling this – to our minds, substantial – gap, our conference intends to contribute to such a study.

Speakers include: Vittoria Feola (Padua/Oxford/Rome), Richard Hingley (Durham), Kelsey Jackson Williams (Stirling), Marian Nebelin (Chemnitz), Ronny Kaiser (Berlin), William Stenhouse (New York), Silvia Pfister (Coburg); keynote speaker will be Caspar Hirschi (St. Gallen).

The Prince-Albert-Society (Patron: HRH The Duke of Edinburgh) is a scholarly society founded in 1981 and devoted to research on scientific, cultural and political aspects of Anglo-German relations. Since ist beginnings, the society has organized annual conferences on a wide range of relevant topics. A joint foundation of the town of Coburg and the University of Bayreuth, the society is based in Coburg, an historic town of 40.000 inhabitants in the north of Bavaria and former seat of the dukes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.