Transformations of Intercultural Diplomacies: Comparative Views on Asia and Europe (1700 to 1850)

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Transformations of Intercultural Diplomacies: Comparative Views on Asia and Europe (1700 to 1850)

Organizer
Prof. Dr. Henrietta Harrison (University of Oxford) and Prof. Dr. Christian Windler (Universität Bern), in cooperation with Dr. des. Nadine Amsler (Universität Bern)
Venue
Haus der Universität, Schlösslistrasse 5, 3012 Bern (Switzerland)
Location
Bern
Country
Switzerland
From - Until
02.06.2016 - 04.06.2016
Website
By
Christian Windler, Historisches Institut, Universität Bern

The history of diplomacy and foreign relations is undergoing radical conceptual and methodological change. Instead of the traditional state-centred view, new approaches have highlighted the interpersonal nature of early modern foreign relations. These were managed by agents who, by serving their rulers, also pursued other interests concerning their person, family, or locality. The fruitfulness of an approach focusing on these intermediaries has also been highlighted by historians focusing on intercultural diplomacies. Indeed, growing interest in entangled histories that examine the global interconnections between societies has given new importance to the study of the lives and ideas of those who moved between cultures. In this context, the history of diplomacy is particularly interesting because it gives us the opportunity to look at how people at the time understood and dealt with different normative orders. Instead of emphasising essentialised cultural difference, this approach encourages us to examine how mutual perceptions and normative orders are actually produced through the practice of diplomacy.
The workshop centres on a period which has been singled out as a moment of profound transformations in intra-European diplomatic practice as well as in diplomatic and cultural relations between Asian and European societies. It aims to bring together historians working on different Asian and European diplomacies in order to study early modern Eurasian diplomatic encounters as well as their transformations between 1700 and 1850 in a comparative as well as in an entangled perspective.

Programm

Thursday, 2 June 2016

14.30–15.00: Coming together, Welcome Coffee
15.00–15.30: Henrietta Harrison (Oxford) / Christian Windler, (Bern) / Nadine Amsler (Bern): Introduction

Panel I: Transformations around 1800
Chair: Nadir Weber (Constance / Bern)
15.30–16.10: Matthew Mosca (Seattle)
Comprehending the Qing Empire: Building Multilingual Competence in an Age of Imperial Rivalry, 1790-1820
16.10–16.40: Coffee Break
16.40–17.20: Will Smiley (Portland)
Ottoman Diplomacy and the Law of Nations, 1699-1856
17.20–18.00: Pascal Firges (Paris)
The French Revolutionary Transformation of Diplomatic Practise: Franco-Ottoman Negotiations in Istanbul, 1792-1797
18.00–18.15: Break
18.15–19.15: Henrietta Harrison (Oxford) / Hillard von Thiessen (Rostock)
Comments, Panel Discussion

Friday, 3 June 2016

Panel II: Practices of Diplomatic Interaction
Chair: Henrietta Harrison (Oxford)
09.00–09.40: Adam Yuet Chau (Cambridge UK)
Hosting the Periphery: The Alternating Audience System (年班) during the Qing Dynasty
9.40–10.20: Tanja Bührer (Bern)
Intercultural Diplomacy at the Court of the Nizam of Hyderabad, c. 1770-1815
10.20–10.50: Coffee Break
10.50–11.30: Michael Khodarkovsky (Chicago)
The White Tsar and his “Unfaithful” Subjects: Intercultural Diplomacies on Russia's Asian Frontier
11.30–12.10: Jan Hennings (Budapest)
Exchanges between Centres beyond the Periphery: The First Russian Permanent Embassy in Istanbul

12.10–14.10: Lunch

14.10–14.50: Christian Windler (Bern)
Performing Inequality in Mediterranean Diplomacy
14.50–15.50: Muzaffar Alam (Chicago) / André Krischer (Münster)
Comments, Panel Discussion
15.50–16.20: Coffee Break

17.00-18.00: Keynote Lecture at the Institute of History (Unitobler, room F 013)
Sanjay Subrahmanyam (Los Angeles)
The Usual Compliments? Translations and Silences in Early Modern Intercultural Diplomacy

Saturday, 4 June 2016

Panel III: The Social Identities of Diplomatic Agents
Chair: Nadine Amsler (Bern)
9.00–9.40: Christian Steppan (Vienna)
Crossing the Border between 'the Self' and 'the Other': Imperial Ambassadors as Actors of Communication and Representation at the Russian Court (1720s-1730s)
9.40–10.20: Irena Fliter (Tel Aviv)
The Prussian Connection: Careers of Ottoman Diplomats in Times of Revolutions
10.20–10.50: Coffee Break
10.50–11.30: David Do Paço (Paris)
Family, Clientelism and Regional Integration from Below: The Oriental Branch of the Cobenzl Clientele between Vienna and Istanbul
11.30–12.10: Henrietta Harrison (Oxford)
Becoming a Faithful Interpreter: The Story of Jacobus Ly and the 1793 Macartney Embassy to China

12.10–13.40: Lunch

13.40–14.20: May Bo Ching (Hongkong)
Little People, Big World: Intercultural encounters around the Pearl River Delta in South China from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century
14.20–15.20: Maurus Reinkowski (Basel) / Jeroen Duindam (Leiden)
Comments, Panel Discussion
15.20–16.00 Round Table, Final Discussion

Contact (announcement)

Hedy Werthmüller

Länggassstrasse 49
CH-3000 Bern 9

hedy.werthmueller@hist.unibe.ch

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Published on
29.03.2016
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