Here in York,
the flemish houses close to the river,
the french words in the coat of arms,
giovedì 2 luglio 2015
martedì 19 maggio 2015
martedì 14 aprile 2015
Marie Curie Ambassador
Since June 2013, I've been living and
working in York, UK with my son Lorenzo and my wife Valentina.
When I discovered I had won the Marie Curie
fellowship, already three years ago (time really flies!!!!!), it was quite a
shock in a way. I would never have believed I could have left my country for 2
years with a 7 year old child. The great opportunity - courtesy of the European
Committee and the Marie Curie Fellowship - is truly a privilege.
I think these kind of experiences show the
merit of the European project for academics, students and families. An idea
which allows people to discover the diversity and cultural differences between
our countries is worth keeping. These intercultural projects and exchanges between
European countries are really important to build a real community of countries,
in terms of politics and education, and not just in terms of economy.
Another reflection I would like to share,
near the end to this two-year contract at the University of York, is how lucky
we are when we can study what we love. How lucky we are when we can work on the
subject and the field really interest us. And how lucky we are if our job
brings us far away from our country to let us discover a new world of colleagues,
of archives, of academia: in all, a new way of life.
The most incredible thing is that all these
opportunities were a result of my rather archaic field of study: Early Modern
History. In a world where everything is so fast thanks to new technologies,
studying the past could seem to be an insult for the boys and the girls of the
high schools I met during these two years. It could seem to be a waste of time,
when all we need to know is at your fingertips: one click and you have access
to the whole world. Apparently. Perhaps. However, I’m not absolutely sure. If this were the
case, my job would have no meaning.
However, what I have really learnt during
my career as a historian and what I have discovered in the Archive is something
slightly different: it's not easy at all unveil the secrets from our past. It's
not easy at all rebuild our past, trying to illuminate - sometimes with remarkably
few clues from the documents - how things really developed, what people really
thought, felt and wanted! And when we do discover it, thanks to the all sources
the historians can use, trust me you feel like a magician who has just learnt a new trick. Or like a new Sherlock Holmes -
since we are in Britain now - when he solved one of his complicated crimes.
Of course we need as historians the new
technologies to retell the past to the new generations (as I'm trying to do
using this blog) and even to have easier access to the documents. But the
chance to spend your time in Libraries or in the Archives, in Italy as in the UK,
in Japan as in the US, is something precious the historians should not ever
loose. Even if the documents would be one day all digitised, researching the
past means not only reading a document but discovering its meaning and its
provenance. Trying to understand and follow the smell of the traces left from
the past, like a detective. Researching and studying the past is a mission
which sometimes doesn't give you the results you expected. That means you have
to be patient and keep going: searching, even when it seems impossible to
clarify the mysteries from the past. Someone after you will thank you for your
efforts. Nothing in scientific research is lost.
lunedì 13 aprile 2015
An International Workshop
The Origins of the Inquisition in comparative
perspective
An international workshop
The Treehouse,
Humanities Research Centre (HRC), Berrick Saul
Building, University of York
21 May 2015
Organised
by Simon Ditchfield & Andrea Vanni
in
association with the Department of
History & the
Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies (CREMS)
University
of York
Recent work on the inquisition tribunals
operating not only in Spain, Portugal and the Italian peninsula but also in the
Habsburg Low Countries has made us appreciate as never before the degree to
which they consciously wrote themselves into history as saviours of orthodoxy
in the face of heresy. Some of the latest scholarship has shifted attention
from focus on ‘the body count’, that is to say, the victims, to considering the
‘bodies that count’ – the inquisitors themselves, their careers and
professional culture. This workshop intends to look at these themes in a truly
comparative context: one, furthermore, that is not only synchronic – in which
it will be asked to what degree can all four early modern inquisitions can be
considered a single, transnational network - but also diachronic: how important
is the history of the medieval inquisition to our understanding of its early
modern successors?
Provisional programme
All
papers are to be pre-circulated at least a week in advance. Discussants will
chair each session and start off dicsussion/debate with a short 5-10 minute
response to the papers – each paper author will then have five minutes or so to
respond before the discussion is opened out to everyone present. There will
also be a small audience of invited auditors.
09.30 - 11.00 Panel A: Medieval and Early Modern Origins
Lucy Sackville (Lecturer
in Medieval History, University of York)
Andrea Vanni (Marie Curie
postdoctoral Fellow, University of York)
Respondent: John Arnold (Professor of
Medieval History, Birkbeck College, University of London)
11.00 - 11.30 Coffee/tea break
11.30 - 13.00 Panel B: Confessional histories of the Spanish and Roman Inquisitions
Kimberly Lynn (Associate Professor of History, Western
Washington University)
Michaela Valente (Associate Professor of History, Università degli studi del Molise, Campobasso)
Respondent: Simon Ditchfield (Professor
of Early Modern History, University of York)
13.00 - 14.15 Buffet Lunch for workshop
participants incl. auditors (in Treehouse)
N.B. Afternoon workshop sessions
will now be on the ground floor of the HRC in room BS/008
14.15 - 15.45 Panel C: The Habsburg & Lusitanian Inquisitions and their victims in
history
Violet Soen (Associate Professor of History, KU Leuven)
Giuseppe Marcocci (Research Fellow, Università degli studi della Tuscia, Viterbo)
Respondent: Francisco Bethencourt (Charles
Boxer Professor of Portuguese History, King’s College, University of London)
15.45 - 16.00 Short coffee/tea break
16.00 - 16.45 Concluding Round-table of
discussants led by Nicholas Davidson (Associate Professor of the History of the
Renaissance and Reformation, University of Oxford)
18.00 - Distinguished Visitor Lecture in Bowland
Theatre (HRC) – Massimo Firpo (Professor of Early Modern History, Scuola Normale
Superiore, Pisa - University of Turin) Rethinking ‘Catholic Reformation’ and ‘Counter Reformation’:
what happened in Early Modern Catholicism? The Case of Italy
19.00 - Wine reception in ground floor lobby
of HRC
19.30 - Buffet supper for speakers and invited
guests (The Treehouse)
N.B.
As this is a workshop with pre-circulated papers, anyone wishing to attend must
apply via email to the organisers Simon Ditchfield and Andrea Vanni by 1 May
Iscriviti a:
Post (Atom)