Preparations are well under way for our first workshop on 13 May 2022. ‘Mapping Connections’ sets out the state of research on Central and Eastern European networks and positions the study of Central and Eastern European visual and material culture as a critical platform for asking broader questions about early modernity.
The morning session will examine the trade routes that crossed the landscape of Central and Eastern Europe, a vast borderland between east and west. Shifting from a centre-periphery model, the focus is on examining religious, artistic, intellectual and political entanglements of forms, ideas, innovations, and practices across the region. How did these cultural agents shape Central and Eastern European material life?
The afternoon session takes individual case studies of objects as a point of entry to examine whether there are objects and things that are typical for the region, and, if so, how to conceptualize and visualize the wider networks they engendered? To this effect, we seek to examine the cultural production and consumption of the region with the purpose of exploring the possible artistic intersections, networks, forms of exchange, shared practices, and systems of signification that could shape a shared cultural domain regarded today as ‘Central and Eastern Europe’.
See the workshop page for further details and the full line up of speakers.
To join us and for further information, please email Suzanna Ivanič (s.ivanic@kent.ac.uk) and Tomasz Grusiecki (tomaszgrusiecki@boisestate.edu).