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Dynastic Networks as Vehicles for Cultural Transfer: Sources, Methods and Theoretical Approaches

Wolfenbüttel Library

15-18 July 2014, Wolfenbüttel

UPDATE: This event has already happened. Click here to read the Conference Report.

The aim of this first international Marrying Cultures workshop is to bring together scholars from universities, museums and libraries who work on the material aspects of cultural exchange for an intense exchange of ideas. The format of the conference, with short talks on a single object or relevant consort or collection, is designed to provide ample time for general discussion on methodology and approaches to working on the history of the cultural contribution of dynastic consorts.

This emphasis on methodology is intended to provide members of the Marrying Cultures team with a forum in which to tease out the theoretical problems involved in conducting research on persons and objects which inhabited very different notions of identity and culture our own: ‘foreign’ and ‘national’, for example, are not terms which translate well across the centuries; and understanding terms which early modern people took as foundational to their culture - ‘dynasty’, for example - can prove exceptionally challenging to scholars. To engage with these problems, each speaker will comment on an item of their work, focusing on issues which they feel are unresolved, the challenges posed by the source material, and how they would alter their approach to the material now in light of advances in theory.

Herzog August Bibliothek
Lessingplatz 1
D-38304 Wolfenbüttel
Germany
Phone: 
+49 (0)5331/808-206
Fax: 
+49 (0)5331/808-266
Website: 
www.hab.de

Workshop Programme

15th July 2014

15.00-16.00 Tour of the library for conference participants
18.00-19.15 Public lecture by Clarissa Campbell Orr: Exhibiting the Mind: material culture versus intellectual networks?
Main Hall of the Bibliotheca Augusta
Read the abstract
19.30 Buffet and reception

16th July 2014

9.00-10.30 Introduction to the Marrying Cultures research project:
Helen Watanabe O’Kelly, Jill Bepler, Almut Bues, Elise Dermineur, Adam Morton, Svante Norrhem, Maria Skiba, Urszula Zachara-Związek
10.30-11.00 Coffee break
11.00-12.30 Volker Bauer: Some thoughts on cultural exchange
Round table discussion:
  • Cultural exchange, cultural encounters, cultural translation: how do these categories apply in a court context?
  • A sum of their parts? The benefits and disadvantages of individual case studies in the research of dynastic networks
12.30-14.00 Lunch break
14.00-16.00 Cultural transfer - exemplary collections and objects
  • Wolfgang Schmale - The Albertina in Vienna
  • Alfred Hagemann - Exhibiting dynastic connections. “Frauensache” - an exhibition by the Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg 2015
16.00-16.30 Coffee break
16.30-18.00 Cultural transfer - exemplary collections and objects
  • Joanna Marschner - A gift from Liselotte of the Palatine to Queen Caroline of England
  • Julius Bryant - An architectural model and its significance for cultural transfer
  • Ann Grönhammar - Two enigmatic rings belonging to Queen Hedwig Eleonora of Sweden

17th July 2014

9.00-10.30 Cultural transfer in travel and fashion
  • Caroline Hibbard - “French influence” on English court dress in the Caroline era
  • Allison Goudie - Practices surrounding fashion and regalia (to be confirmed)
  • Merit Laine - A Journeyman in the Woodpile - Tracing Cultural Transfer in the Archives
10.30-11.00 Coffee break
11.00-12.30 Cultural transfer and case studies
  • Katrin Keller - Anna von Sachsen: the exchange of plants between courts
  • Anu Lahtinen - The Queen Dowager Catharina (Stenbock) and her purported wedding chest
  • Mara Wade - From Denmark to Saxony - the Golden Horn
12.30-14.00 Lunch break
14.00-15.30 Cultural transfer and case studies
  • Christina Strunck - Christine of Lorraine, Medici Duchess
  • Susanne Rode-Breymann - Eleonora II, Habsburg Empress
  • Pablo Vazquez Gestal - Elisabetta Farnese, Queen of Spain
15.30-16.00 Coffee break
16.00-17.30 Final discussion and summary
19.00 Buffet
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