Cosmopolis: Local Knowledge and Hybridity in Global Cities of the Renaissance World : Call for Papers

Scientific committee

• Claire Judde de Larivière, Maître de conférences, Université de Toulouse
• Rosa Salzberg, Assistant Professor, University of Warwcik

RSA Annual Meeting, San Diego, 4-6 April 2013

Presentation

During the Renaissance, different cities grew considerably as a result of conquests, migrations, transfers and exchanges. Venice, Cordoba, Istanbul, and Alexandria had been cosmopolitan cities since the Middle Ages; London, Amsterdam and Mexico City were about to become so.

As powerful capitals, ports or hubs, these cities welcomed continuous waves of migration. As a result, a large part of their population was constituted by migrants, who came for a short term or stayed for a longer period, who settled in the city and put down roots, or retained a fragile and tenuous status. These cosmopolises can be considered as social, cultural and political laboratories, where populations constantly mixed and exchanged knowledge and know-how, traditions and habits, practices and behaviour.

This process of mixture and exchange was surely a major component of the way that cosmopolises were constructed.

We are seeking papers from across the disciplines which explore cosmopolises of the Renaissance world, particularly focusing on the ordinary people, men and women, who practiced the manual jobs and trades which guaranteed the growth of the economy and the city. Potential themes might include:

• What were the common characteristics of Renaissance cosmopolises?
• How did people arrive, settle, integrate into a cosmopolis?
• How did the mixture of people of different backgrounds work in practice?
• What criteria did inhabitants of these cities use to identify themselves and others?
• How did governments regulate or promote cosmopolitanism?
• How did ordinary people contribute to the construction of a cosmopolis and a cosmopolitan society?
• How were skills and knowledge transferred and exchanged in cosmopolises?
• How did the urban environment of the city reflect or promote a cosmopolitan society?

Submissions

Please send a brief abstract (max. 250 words) and a brief narrative CV (max. 150 words)  to 

• Claire Judde de Lariviere (judde@univ-tlse2.fr) and
• Rosa Salzberg (r.salzberg@warwick.ac.uk)

by 15 May 2012.