Social Sites/Öffentliche Räume/
Lieux d’échanges 1300-1800
Prepared for a History Department Council Meeting
Research Showcase Day
Wednesday 23rd May 2007
History & Funding
Formed by Beat Kümin in 2003 under the auspices of an
‘Academic Collaboration: International Networks’
award from the Leverhulme Trust. Designed to ‘foster and
develop fields of research where the participants can
benefit from an international exchange of ideas and of
experience between two or more institutions’.
£41,000 for a three-year cycle.
Network Members
As well as Beat Kümin and James Brown from the
University of Warwick, the network comprises
colleagues from the University of Paris I (Wolfgang
Kaiser) and the Technical University of Dresden
(Susanne Rau, Gerd Schwerhoff and Christian Hochmuth).
Network Members
Communicative Structure
Annual Follow-up Meetings:
Coventry (2006), Frankfurt (2007), Paris (2008)
The Network Facilitator: A 20% administrative post.
Principal tasks include liaison with the host institution,
network members and workshop participants, and rolling
maintenance of the network website.
Tobias Hug (2005-6)
James Brown (2006-7)
Thematic Basis: The ‘Spatial Turn’
Focussing on Europe and its neighbouring areas from the
late Middle Ages to the eve of the modern period, the
network partakes of and promotes the interpretative
upgrading of space from an inert platform or empirical
‘given’ to a social and cultural construct with an ‘agentic’
role in social action. Three interrelated foci:
The ‘actually lived space of sites’
dwellings, public houses, marketplaces, parish churches
Early modern spatial perceptions
theology, economic and political theory, optics, geometry
Space as ‘good to think’
a hermeneutic device for the investigation of historical problems
Activities I: Workshops
Three international gatherings interrogate early modern
space in some major manifestations. Invited speakers from
various disciplinary backgrounds (c. 20) explore theme over
an intensive residential workshop consisting of formal
sessions, plenaries, public lectures and field trips:
Political Space (Warwick, 2005)
Speakers included Ronald Asch, Christine Carpenter, James C. Scott and David Zaret
Religious Space (Dresden, 2006)
Speakers included José Casanova, Susan Karant-Nunn and Jacques Rossiaud
Economic Space (Aix-en-Provence, 2007)
Speakers include Olivia Remie Constable and Molly Greene
Activities II: Website
Launched in April 2005 and hosted by the History
Department, the website is central to our communication and
research profile. General information about the network, links
to other research resources and projects, an interdisciplinary
bibliography, as well as a calendar advertising network
workshops and related events:
http://go.warwick.ac.uk/socialsites/
Attracts a high number of visitors; 2829 ‘hits’ in January 2007,
98% of which were external.
Dissemination
Political Space in
Preindustrial
Europe
B. Kümin (ed.)
R. Dürr & G. Schwerhoff (eds)
Kirchen, Märkte und Tavernen: Erfahrungs- und
Handlungsräume in der Frühen Neuzeit (Frankfurt, 2005)
C. Hochmuth & S. Rau (eds)
Machträume der früneuzeitlichen Stadt (Konstanz, 2006)
B. Kümin (ed.)
Political Space in Preindustrial Europe (Aldershot, 2008)
Future Directions
With our three-year cycle of activity coming to an end all
members have expressed a strong interest in continuing the
initiative. Future collaborations might involve:
A large thematic research project with linked PhD and
postdoctoral studentships at network institutions.
A major research article on spatial approaches
co-authored by network members.
A residential summer school, attached to a network
institution, that would enable European graduate students to
converge on spatial questions.