A violent world? Changes and limits to large-scale violence in early modernity
June 29 – July 1 2017
All Souls College, University of Oxford
This conference brings global approaches to the history of violence, reassessing the nature of violence during the early modern period. Integrating warfare and other crucial forms of large-scale violence with recent scholarship on the history of collective and inter-personal violence, this three-day conference will probe historical assumptions about the limits of violence and its decline during the early modern period.
Speakers include: Wayne Lee, Anthony McFarlane, Stuart Carroll, Pratyay Nath, Brian Sandberg, Cecile Vidal, Lauren Benton, Adam Clulow, Richard Reid, and James Belich.
29 June, Thursday
1.30 pm Registration
2 pm Introduction: Erica Charters, Marie Houllemare, Peter Wilson
2.15 pm: Session 1: Multi-scale Violence
Richard Reid (SOAS): ‘None could stand before him in the battle, none ever reigned so wisely as he’: Violence and its uses in early modern Africa
Cécile Vidal (EHESS, Paris): Chattel Slavery, War, and Multi-Scale Violence in Early English and French America
Chair: Trevor Burnard (Melbourne)
3.45 pm: Tea and Coffee, Dining Hall
4.15 pm Session 2: Interpersonal and State Violence
Stuart Carroll (York): Violence and the state in early modern Europe Speaker TBC
Chair: Peter Wilson (Oxford)
6 pm: Drinks Reception, Codrington Library
30 June, Friday
9.15 am Session 3: Overseas violence
James Belich (Oxford): Plague, the Military Revolution, and European Expansion
Adam Clulow (Monash): Drawing Lines in the Sea: The Dutch East India Company, the Zheng Maritime Network and the Uses of Early Modern Law
Chair: Erica Charters (Oxford)
10.45: Tea and Coffee, Dining Hall
11.15 Session 4: Representations of Violence
Pratyay Nath (Ashoka University): ‘The Wrath of God’: Justification of Military Violence in Mughal Imperial Discourse
Michel van Duijnen (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam): ‘Sacrificed to the madness of the bloodthirsty sabre’: The Great Turkish War and the visualization of violence in the Low Countries
Chair: Brian Sandberg (Northern Illinois University)
12.45: Lunch, Dining Hall
2 pm Session 5: Banditry, Raids and Non-state Warfare
Brian Sandberg (Northern Illinois University): Raiding war and globalization in the Early Modern World
Alexandr Osipian (National University of Kyiv): Dealing with bandits and authorities: legal and customary restrains of violence in the caravan trade between the Ottoman Empire, Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Russia
Chair: Lauren Benton (Vanderbilt)
3.30 Tea and Coffee, Dining Hall
4 pm Session 6: Collective Violence, Riots and Massacres
Mark Meuwese (Winnipeg): The outburst and restraint of racial massacres in European colonies in the mid-eighteenth century
Gulay Yilmaz (Akdeniz University, Antalya): Violence taking over the Ottoman capital, urban protests of 17th century Istanbul
Chair: Adam Clulow (Monash)
7 pm Formal Dinner, Dining Hall (dress code smart casual)
1 July, Saturday
9 am Session 7: Revolutionary Violence
Joseph Clarke (Trinity College, Dublin): ‘Preaching Philosophy at Bayonet Point’: Violence and the French Revolutionary Wars
Anthony McFarlane (University of Warwick), Counter-Revolutionary Violence in Spanish America, 1810-1825.
Chair: Stuart Carroll (York)
10.30 Tea and Coffee, Dining Hall
11 am Session 8: Patterns of Violent Conquests
Lauren Benton (Vanderbilt): The Law of Small Wars: Rethinking Conquest in the Atlantic World Wayne Lee (UNC): Conquer, Extract, and Perhaps Govern: Comparative Landscapes, Logistics, and Violence in the Early Modern World
Chair: Marie Houllemare (Amiens / Institute Universitaire de France)
12.30 Lunch and concluding discussion
For more information click "Further official information" below.