Call for Papers “Early Modern Print Culture in Central Europe”

Seminar of the Academia Europaea and the University of Wrocław
16 – 18 September 2013, Wrocław (Poland)

The Academia Europaea Knowledge Hub Wrocław and the University of Wrocław invite young scholars (PhD candidates and postdocs), to take part in the Seminar “Early Modern Print Culture in Central Europe” to be held in Wrocław (Poland) on 16 – 18 September 2013.

Context and rationale:
International research has little to say about the development of early modern print culture in Central Europe. Poland for instance is mentioned just once in the latest edition of Elisabeth Eisenstein’s classic study The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (2005), and other parts of Central Europe are not mentioned at all. Nevertheless, the first printing press in Central Europe was established in 1473 in Cracow (Poland) and in the next decades presses were put into operation particularly in university towns. Although at the beginning these presses produced books in Latin, texts in vernacular languages appeared from the early sixteenth century onward as a result of the Protestant Reformation. Although there is a rich historiography on this topic in various countries in the region, research literature is unfortunately not easily accessible to an international public because of language barriers. The seminar is aimed at bringing together scholars in the field of print culture to discuss the latest developments in their discipline against the background recent international research on print culture. Keynote lectures by senior scholars will be combined with presentations by younger scholars. The outcome of the seminar will be a collection of papers, but also forging contacts to set up new collaborative research projects.

Possible topics:
- international knowledge networks in the early modern period in Central Europe
- printers, booksellers, publishers
- readers and reading
- libraries
- scholarly publishing
- book production in vernacular languages
- censorship
- privileges before copyright
- book illustration
- periodicals in the early modern period
- religious matters in print
- mapmaking
- geography of the book

APPLICATION: Submit a 300-word abstract, a curriculum vitae, a letter of recommendation from a senior scholar, and a completed registration form via email by April 15, 2013. All applicants will be notified about the selection of participants before May 1, 2013.

SECOND REQUIEREMENT: Only those, who are selected to participate will be asked to submit a 3,000-5,000 word description or excerpt (i.e. chapter, article, etc.) for circulation to the workshop participants by 31 July 2013. These papers will be made available online. All workshop participants are asked to read these submissions prior to the workshop. The paper should be an unpublished one. Presenters who do not meet the submission deadline, will not be able to attend the workshop.

SEMINAR LANGUAGE will be English.

FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS: The organisers will provide accommodation, reimburse travel expenses to certain maximum*, conference fee, insurance and the costs of publication of refereed conference papers for participants.

ORGANISING COMMITTEE:
Pieter Emmer (Leiden University; Academia Europaea)
Aleksandra Nowak (Academia Europaea Knowledge Hub Wrocław)
Stefan Kiedroń (Wrocław University; organiser)
Siegfried Huigen (Wrocław University)
Irena Barbara Kalla (Wrocław University)

All correspondence - prefarably by email - including submission of proposals and final papers, must be addressed to: Dr Aleksandra Nowak
nowak@acadeuro.wroclaw.pl
tel/fax +48 71 770 20 26
mobile +48 506 388 101
www.acadeuro.wroclaw.pl