The conference “Order into Action” asks if political, geographical or religious large-scale concepts constituted the basic elements of systems of world order and how those concepts were translated into concrete actions or practices. In order to include a comparative view on regions and cultures, the confereince combines the perspectives of scholars in European, Arabic and Islamic and Asian Studies, as well as outlooks on premodern societies in (sub-saharan) Africa, the Americas and Australia.

Argument

In recent years, research on premodern systems of world order (concepts and practices) and the categories they employed has considerably intensified: numerous enlightening studies focus on the diversity of perceptions and descriptions of “the world” in premodern Europe and Asia (c.1300-1600). These studies help us to better understand, how historical actors or societies constructed and perceived the world they inhabited. However, the question if and how the large-scale concepts that constituted the basic elements of systems of world order were translated into concrete actions or practices, still remains underexplored. In order to analyse and underline the relevance of insights into the mental representations of “the world”, we consider it necessary and fruitful to ask, how theoretical models and the categories on which they rely influence (or even determine) concrete actions.

Our conference “Order into Action” envisages combining and discussing the perspectives of scholars in European, Arabic and Islamic as well as Asian Studies, organised in the three thematic fields of religion, political ideas and geographic models. In order to include comparative outlooks on regions and cultures that were not (or less) connected with the cultures of the premodern Eurasian ecumene, contributions also include papers on premodern societies in (sub-saharan) Africa, the Americas and Australia.

Attendance

Attendance to the conference is free. Due to limited seating capacities, we ask, however, that interested guests register via email to christoph.mauntel@uni-tuebingen.de

before 1. November 2016.

Order into Action – How large-scale concepts of world-order determine practices in the premodern world

Heidelberg, November 10-12, 2016

Heidelberg University Library, Plöck 107-109

Programme

Thursday, November 10

• 13:30 to 14.00 Welcome/ Coffee
• 14:00 to 14:10 Veit Probst (Heidelberg): Welcome
• 14:20 to 14:30 Klaus Oschema/Christoph Mauntel: Introduction

Panel 1: Religious concepts

Chair: Bernd Schneidmüller (Heidelberg)

• 14:30 to 15:20 David Max Moerman (New York): The Buddhist World Continent and the European World Order: Transcultural Cartography in Japan, 1300-1700
• 15:20 to 16:10 Nora Berend (Cambridge): The concept of christianitas: a guide to action?
• 16:10 to 16:40 Coffee Break
• 16:40 to 17:30 Daniel König (Heidelberg): dār al-ḥarb and terra paganorum. On the Practical Implications of Circumscribing the Sphere of the ‘Infidels’

Friday, November 11

Panel 2: Political concepts

Chair: Enno Giele (Heidelberg)

• 09:00 to 09:50 Michal Biran (Jerusalem): The Mongol World-Order: From Universalism to Glocalization
• 09:50 to 10:40 Albrecht Fuess (Marburg): Global Historiography and Mirrors for Princes: Concepts of Political Rule in the Near East (15th-16th centuries)
• 10:40 to 11:10 Coffee Break
• 11:10 to 12:00 Klaus Oschema (Princeton/Heidelberg)/Christoph Mauntel (Tübingen): Between Universal Empire and the Plurality of Kingdoms – the Influence of Political Concepts in Late Medieval Latin Europe

12:00 to 14:00 Lunch Break

Panel 3: Geographic concepts

Chair: Joachim Kurtz (Heidelberg)

• 14:00 to 14:50 Christine Gadrat-Ouerfelli (Marseille): Travelling through empires: how Medieval travellers conceived of Asia
• 14:50 to 15:40 Michael Wintle (Amsterdam): The Advent of the Black Magus: exoticism, court politics and the creation of a continental hierarchy
• 15:40 to 16:10 Coffee Break
• 16:10 to 17:00 Donatella Guida (Naples): Bestowing Benevolence. The Chinese Imperial World Order and the Construction of its Margins.

Saturday, November 12

Panel 4: Outlook: premodern societies in Africa, the Americas and Australia

Chair: Gerrit Jasper Schenk (Darmstadt)

• 09:00 to 09:50 Mark Horton (Bristol): Beyond Eurasia – the African contribution to the premodern world
• 09:50 to 10:40 Veronica Strang (Durham): Seeing Through the Rainbow: Aboriginal Australian concepts of an ordered universe
• 10:40 to 11:10 Coffee Break
• 11:10 to 12:00 Frauke Sachse (Bonn): Worlds in Words: The Encounter of Pre-Columbian and European Cosmologies in Colonial Missionary and Indigenous Texts from Highland Guatemala
• 12:00 to 12:30 Final discussion/Concluding remarks