When the Night Comes
Quando scende la notte
Opportunities, limits and interpretation of the night from the Antiquity to the contemporary age
Opportunità, limiti e interpretazioni della notte dall’Antichità all’età contemporanea
Published on Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Abstract
Everything about darkness differs according to a wide range of factors including historical age, society, gender, social class, occupations. In this sense, we mean everything that fills the night with life, from the economic, political, social, cultural and religious activities of human beings to the behavior of animals, anything that stimulates the senses, from shadows, street lighting, stars, nocturnal plant and animal life to human bodies shrouded in darkness. In short, everything that humans experience during the night, from everyday life to the parallel world of dreams or the unwelcome visitation of ghosts to pirate attacks. The purpose of the Student Conference is to analyze the night from a broad historical perspective, starting from the state of the art on the subject and arriving at new declinations of the night and its importance for human activities in the past.
Announcement
Argument
When the night comes. Opportunities, limits and interpretation of the night from the antiquity to the contemporary age is a conference organized by the Doctoral Program in History at the University of Pavia addressed to young researchers, doctoral students and master’s degree students working on thesis or research projects in Ancient, Medieval, Modern and Contemporary History and Archaeology. The Student Conference aims to encourage the dialogue among scholars from different backgrounds within a stimulating and enriching environment.
The 2023 edition is structured around the theme of the night, understood first and foremost as the time span between sunset and sunrise, between twilight and dawn. However, the night can also be understood in the broader sense of darkness and become a metaphor understood as a difficult time characterized by problems, crisis, decadence, sadness, ignorance, and mystery.
Everything about darkness differs according to a wide range of factors including historical age, society, gender, social class, occupations. In this sense, we mean everything that fills the night with life, from the economic, political, social, cultural and religious activities of human beings to the behavior of animals, anything that stimulates the senses, from shadows, street lighting, stars, nocturnal plant and animal life to human bodies shrouded in darkness. In short, everything that humans experience during the night, from everyday life to the parallel world of dreams or the unwelcome visitation of ghosts to pirate attacks.
The purpose of the Student Conference is to analyze the night from a broad historical perspective, starting from the state of the art on the subject and arriving at new declinations of the night and its importance for human activities in the past.
Following the crucial publication in 1978 of Murray Melbin’s article “Night as Frontier,” scholars began to consider the study of the hours of the day between sunset and sunrise, understood as a time for particular human activities. While Melbin’s investigation focused on modern America, historians in pre-modern Europe applied his insights to the study of people’s nocturnal activities and literary representations of the night. In the Italian scene, already Ginzburg in 1989 had titled his book on diabolical witchcraft, fiercely persecuted between the 15th and 18th centuries, “Storia notturna” : the author takes us on a journey among mythological and folklore characters to understand the nocturnal activity of the sabbath. Medievalists and modernists have been among those at the forefront of making the “night turn” in historical studies : over the past two decades, works such as Jean Verdon’s “Night in the Middle Ages” (2002), Craig Koslofsky’s “Evening’s Empire : A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe” (2011) and A. Roger Ekirch’s “At Day’s Close : Night in Times Past” (2005) have masterfully explored the theme of night within the historical investigation of pre-industrial Europe. Again, Avner Wishnitzer in his “As Night Falls : Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Cities after Dark” (2021) rightly argues how nightlife in pre-modern cities deserves a separate study, taking a look at the vast eastern Ottoman world. Recently, moreover, Angelos Chaniotis has collected in the volume "La Nuit : imaginaire et réalités nocturnes dans le monde gréco-romain. Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique" (2018) several contributions on the theme of night in the history and literature of the Greco-Hellenistic and Roman world.
The Call for Papers aims to stimulate a broad reflection, in a chronological range from ancient to contemporary times, on the night and its possible declinations in the historical and cultural spheres.
Topics
We invite authors to reflect on different areas, including but not limited to :
The night as a time span
- Objects of the night : material culture ;
- Night work, legal or illegal ;
- Social, political, and subversive activities ;
- Military activities ;
- The activities of control and espionage ;
Night spirituality
- Religion and worship : night processions, rituals, oracles, esoteric activities ;
- Darkness in faith : religious/confessional clashes, prophecies, repression and witchcraft ;
- Dangers and suggestions of the night : emotions, monsters, calamities ;
- Myths, legends and popular festivals related to the night and the absence of light ;
Turning darkness into light
- Light as awakening : identity, conflict, and propaganda ;
- Knowledge as light as opposed to the darkness of ignorance ;
- The changing scanning of the day : from natural night, dusk to dawn, and artificial night ;
Submission guidelines
Application deadline :
February 18, 2024
To apply, you must fill out the form at the following link : https://forms.gle/nDuPTt2tJp91EoxF6
- Proposals, either in Italian or English, must not exceed 300-500 words. Final presentations should last approximately 15 minutes.
- Proposals will be evaluated anonymously ; selected applicants will be contacted by e-mail by March 31, 2024.
- Participants should send by May 15, 2024 a draft of their presentation.
Details
- Location : University of Pavia. The Student Conference will be held in-person, but remote participation will be considered in case of special needs indicated at the time of application.
- When : 30-31 May 2024
- Contact and information : studentconference@unipv.it
- Participants : master’s degree students, doctoral students, young researchers in ancient, medieval, modern, contemporary history and archaeology
- Based on the outcome of the conference, the organising committee will consider the possibility to publish its proceedings.
Organising committee
- Gabriele Brusa, PhD student in Ancient History
- Mattia Capponi, PhD student in Ancient History
- Generoso Cefalo, PhD student in Ancient History
- Sofia Degli Esposti, PhD student in Modern History
- Martina Derada, PhD student in Archaeology
- Carolina Domina, PhD student in African History
- Giorgio Garatti, PhD student in Archaeology
- Federico Meneghini Sassoli, PhD student in Contemporary History Sofia Miola, PhD student in Contemporary History
- Silvia Pin, PhD student in Contemporary History
- Laura Strada, PhD student in Ancient History
- Sara Zanotta, PhD student in Asian History
Selected bibliography
- Chaniotis A., 2018. La Nuit : imaginaire et réalités nocturnes dans le monde gréco-romain. Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique, 64. Fondation Hardt.
- Chaniotis , 2018. “The Polis after Sunset : What is Hellenistic in Hellenistic Nights ?”, in Henning Börm, Nino Luraghi, The Polis in the Hellenistic World. Franz Steiner Verlag.
- Ginzburg C., 1989. Storia notturna, Una decifrazione del sabba. Adelphi.
- Koslofsky C., 2011. Evening’s Empire : A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press.
- Melbin M., 1978. “Night as Frontier,” American Sociological Review 43, 3-22.
- Roger Ekirch , 2005. At Day’s Close : Night in Times Past. W. W. Norton & Company. Verdon J., 2002. Night in the Middle Ages. University of Notre Dame Press.
- Wishnitzer , 2021. As Night Falls, Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Cities after Dark. Cambridge University Press.
Subjects
- History (Main category)
- Periods > Prehistory and Antiquity
- Periods > Middle Ages
- Periods > Early modern
- Periods > Modern
Event attendance modalities
Hybrid event (on site and online)
Date(s)
- Sunday, February 18, 2024
Attached files
Keywords
- history, night, darkness, sunset
Reference Urls
Information source
- Federico Meneghini Sassoli
courriel : f [dot] meneghinisassoli [at] gmail [dot] com
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« When the Night Comes », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Tuesday, January 16, 2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/vlun
