received from Dr. Liesbeth Corens (Queen Mary, London)
Introduction
In a time of ‘alternative facts’ and ‘fake news’ we may long for an earlier, purportedly simpler world in which facts were simply facts. But were facts ever that simple? How did past generations separate fact from fiction; truth from falsehood; and proof from hearsay? Tradition has it that written proof once ruled supreme, whether it concerned early modern scholarship or litigation, the spiritual world of demons and the saints or the worldly realm of land rights and taxation. As historians in different fields have since realised, proof was an omnipresent, but nevertheless contested practice that bred fierce conflicts about degrees of trust, the nature of truth, the boundaries between scholarly disciplines, and the purview of official institutions.
Section from: The lawyer’s office, Pieter de Bloot, 1628, from the Rijksmuseum collection, in the public domain
The historiography on proof is varied, and scholars work in parallel traditions; historians of science are inspired by Bruno Latour; historians of religion look at wonders and miracles; historians of scholarship discuss authenticity and forgery; cultural historians are fascinated by the witness. Proof, in short, has enjoyed much critical press within today’s scholarly disciplines. Rarely, however, have scholars integrated these individual observations to probe the shared European legacy of proof. This conference seeks to provide an international forum for an interdisciplinary exchange about the concept of proof in its different early modern guises. It invites scholars – from political to religious history, from law to the history of art and science – to think about the common intellectual problems that once underlay practices of proving in the early modern period.
With its focus on the period from roughly 1400 to 1800 it hones in on what we posit was a crucial phase in the history of proof. The early modern period is traditionally affiliated with the construction of precisely the disciplinary boundaries that continue to separate different strands of contemporary research on proving. Proof itself underwent a similar transformation: different ways of proving became specific to separate disciplines. To understand, then, why such a fundamental concept as proof is still too often studied within and hardly across separate scholarly disciplines we need to return to the very moment when different forms of proof were articulated for different spheres of life and thought. But instead of making the mute point that disciplines develop exclusive forms of proving, our conference seeks to understand the processes by which the disiplinisation of proof could ultimately come about: for instance, to what extent did the articulation and definition of proof contribute to the development of disciplinary boundaries, and vice versa? Did its articulation in one discipline influence the development in others? Did certain traditions of proving influence this process in disproportionate ways? Did the early modern period develop a hierarchy of proof?
Event Details
Modes of Authentication in Early Modern Europe will be taking place 4-5 July 2019 at the Warburg Haus, Hamburg
The organising committee consist of: Richard Callis (Princeton University), Dr. Liesbeth Corens (Queen Mary, London), and Dr. Tom Tölle (University of Hamburg)
Sponsors: Warburg Haus in Hamburg, Akademie der Wissenschaften in Hamburg, Exzellenzcluster Manuscript Cultures, Universität Hamburg, Society for Renaissance studies, Hamburgische Wissenschaftliche Stiftung, Past & Present Society
Programme
Keynote: Lorraine Daston
– Sara Barker
– Kim Breitmoser
– Richard Calis
– Liesbeth Corens
– Charlotta Forss
– Markus Friedrich
– Andrew Mendelsohn
– Noah Millstone
– Renee Raphael
– Virginia Reinburg
– Hester Schadee
– Kai Schwahn
– Richard Serjeantson
– Tom Toelle
Registration
Attendance is free (thanks to our lovely supporters!), but if you want to join, please register via email before 25 June 2019. Lunch and refreshments are provided during the day, but dinner comes at an extra cost (about €60), should you chose to join us for dinner.
Past & Present is pleased to support this event and other events like it. Applications for event funding are welcomed from scholars working in the field of historical studies at all stages in their careers.
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