About the conference
Organizers: Alessio Assonitis (The Medici Archive Project) & John Henderson (Birkbeck, University of London, & Monash University)
The aim of this conference is to examine the history of water in early modern Tuscany from as many perspectives as possible, by adopting a multi-disciplinary approach.
This topic emerges out of discussions and collaboration between the Medici Archive Project, in particular the research program “Medici and Medicine”, and the new research project ‘Body and the City’ based in the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University (Melbourne and Prato).
While architectural historians have examined the construction of fountains, aqueducts, and baths; environmental historians have looked at the draining of swamps and the maintenance of river banks; historians of science have looked at water from the point of view of physics, hydraulics, and atmospheric studies; economic historians have underlined the importance of rivers for food supply and the coastline for commerce; and demographic historians have examined the mortality and disease in Tuscany, rarely has there been an attempt to talk across these disciplines to develop a more exhaustive picture of the positive and negative characteristics of water.
The aim of this conference is to encourage collaboration between scholars from various disciplines – including, but not limited to, architecture, urban studies, public health, medicine and science, environmental studies, law, and economics - in order to explore new research trajectories in relation to the role of water in early modern Tuscany.
The themes that the organizers wish to address include:
- The Administration of Water;
- Water and Tuscan Economy;
- Water, Society, and the Individual;
- The Architectures of Water; and
- Water and Disease.
The conference, co-sponsored with the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Monash University, will take place at the Medici Archive Project’s Headquarters at Palazzo Alberti (Via de’ Benci 10). Selected participants will receive partial funding for travel and accommodation.
We invite scholars with pertinent interests in the history and culture of water to submit a one-page CV and a 250-word abstract of a projected paper, to last no longer than 25 minutes. The papers can be presented in English or Italian.
Deadline: all proposals and inquiries to be sent to Thomas Brownlees (brownlees@medici.org) by 1 March 2017. Selected participants will be notified by mid-March 2017.
For more information click "Further official information" below.
This opportunity has expired. It was originally published here:
http://www.medici.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/revised-WATER-in-early-modern-Tuscany-MAP-convegno-062017.pdf