Former le corps moderne

Shaping the modern body. Fashion, food, health and manners across South-Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire (17th-19th centuries)

Conference

The international conference “Shaping the Modern Body. Fashion, Food, Health and Manners across South Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire (17th-19th centuries)” intends to open a rich field in an under researched variety of sources. The body is the prism through which we intend to analyse four areas of historical enquiry and social interactions: manners and behavior; dress and fashion; food; health. Private and public spaces, meetings and social events, mediators, translators and go-betweens provide an important backdrop to our focus on male and female bodies and the disciplining, feeding, clothing, healing practices that shaped and changed their self-perceptions, experiences and social identities. We aim to explore a set of sources ranging from costume books and portraits; inventories; correspondences and journals; books of etiquette, food and cosmetic recipes and medical prescriptions; photographs and magazines.

The conference is organized in the frame of the European Research Council Consolidator Grant no. 646489 Luxury, Fashion and Social Status in Early Modern South-Eastern Europe (LuxFaSS), hosted by the New Europe College - Institute for Advanced Study, Bucharest

Thursday, 23 may

09.45 Welcome and Opening Remarks

10.00 – 11.00 Keynote lecture Ulinka RUBLACK (University of Cambridge) The Triumph of Fashion: Towards A Global History

Chair: Giulia CALVI (University of Siena & New Europe College, Bucharest)

11.00 - 11.30 Coffee Break 

11.30 – 12. 30 Session I: Medical Practices
Chair and Discussant: Mária PAKUCS ("Nicolae Iorga" Institute of History & New Europe College, Bucharest)

Giulia CALVI (University of Siena & New Europe College, Bucharest) The Body of Nature. Travelling Scientists across the Ottoman Empire (XVI-XVII)

Miri SHEFER-MOSSENSOHN (Tel Aviv University) Ottoman Physicians around 1700. Rethinking the Body of the Patient
12.30 - 14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 15.30 Session II: Health, Food and Remedies
Chair and discussant: Rossitsa Gradeva (American University in Bulgaria)

Mária PAKUCS ("Nicolae Iorga" Institute of History & New Europe College, Bucharest) "They Steal it From the Sultan's Pharmacy": Pharmaceuticals and Medicines in Early Modern Transylvania

Hedda REINDL-KIEL (University of Bonn) The Balance of Food: Body, Health and Food in the Ottoman Empire (17th-18th century)

Sorin GRIGORUŢĂ ("A. D. Xenopol" Institute of History, Iași) Weakness of the Body: Patiens and Pysicians in Early Modern Moldavia

15.30 - 16.00 Coffee Break

16.00 – 17.00 Keynote lecture Barbara STOLLBERG-RILINGER (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) "The Most Beautiful of Women". Empress Maria Theresa's Body Politics

Chair: Constanţa VINTILĂ-GHIŢULESCU ("Nicolae Iorga" Institute of History & New Europe College, Bucharest)

19:00 Dinner

Friday 24 may 

10.00 – 11.00 Session III: Food and Social Status
Chair and discussant: Ovidiu Cristea ("Nicolae Iorga" Institute of History)

Constanţa VINTILĂ-GHIŢULESCU ("Nicolae Iorga" Institute of History & New Europe College, Bucharest) Food, Body and Social Status in South-Eastern Europe (18th–early 19th centuries)

Castilia MANEA-GRGIN (The Ivo Pilar Institute/University of Zagreb) Food, Drink, and the Body in Englishman Samuel Pepys' and Transylvanian Miklos Bethlen's Autobiographical Writings (17th Century)

11.00 - 11.30 Coffee Break

11.30 – 13.00 Session IV: Textiles and Politics
Chair and discusant: Dariusz KOLODZIEJCZYK (University of Warsaw)

Giorgio RIELLO (University of Warwick) Europeans’ Views of the Use of the Veil in the Middle East in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Graeme MURDOCK (Trinity College Dublin) The Calvinist Body Under Ottoman Suzerainty: Cultures of Complaint in Later Seventeenth- Century Transylvania

Michał WASIUCIONEK (New Europe College, Bucharest) Body Politics, Textile Politics: Kaftan Exchanges in the Ottoman-Moldavian Relations

13.00 - 14.30 Lunch

14.30 - 16.00 Session V: Women, Beauty and Manners
Chair and discussant: Alex DRACE-FRANCIS (University of Amsterdam & New Europe College, Bucharest)

Sandra CAVALLO (Royal Holloway, London) Making the Body Beautiful in Early Modern Western Europe and Beyond

Anastasia FALIEROU (Academy of Athens & New Europe College, Bucharest) Rethinking Modernity: Bodily Practices, Culture of Manners and City Life in the Ottoman Empire

Nicoleta ROMAN ("Nicolae Iorga" Institute of History & New Europe College, Bucharest) ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?’ Women, Beauty, Virtue and Charms in Nineteenth Century Romanian Society
16.00 - 16.30 Coffee Break

16.30 – 17.30 Session VI: Soul of the People and Travel
Chair and discussant: Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu (Faculty of History, University of Bucharest & Institut für den Donauraum und Mitteleuropa, Vienna)

Constantin ARDELEANU (University of Galați & New Europe College, Bucharest) Purifying Passengers and Cargo. The Danubian Quarantine between Miasmatics and Contagionists (1830s – 1850s)

Alex DRACE-FRANCIS (University of Amsterdam & New Europe College, Bucharest) Body and Soul: Physical and Collective Identity in Romanian-language Travel Narratives, 1826-1853

19:00 Dinner


Contacts
Roman Nicoleta
courriel : luxfass [at] gmail [dot] com