As part of our tangible cultural heritage, historic objects play an essential role in the construction of our social memory. Objects have different meanings and uses for different individuals and communities, and many objects have embedded texts or are accompanied by texts. All have different functions. These texts are intimately connected to the objects and, usually, but not always, help us to understand their role in the community, society or within the context in which they are used, reused or displayed, as in the case of objects kept in museums, archives and collections. The range of texts appearing on objects is very broad. They may contain information about the production or the producer of the object, references or a tribute to its owner, an explanation of the function they have or are meant to have (as in the case of amulets with apotropaic formulas, flags, items of clothing or co ins, for example). They may contain narratives of different kinds, or they may also have a more distinct decorative function such as the Arabic calligraphic script adorning all sort of [...]

WG2 Ideas in Motion Workshop on Pandemics and Population Mobility in Early Modern Europe: Actors, Networks, and Ideas, Tallinn University, 16 March 2021. This online  workshop seeks to revisit the effect of pandemics on population mobility and the emergence of new types of knowledge in pre-modern Europe and across the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea regions in order to explore similarities and differences in connection with the recent outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. We encourage contributions on specific case studies focusing on the links between epidemiological outbreaks, population mobility, and knowledge making, particularly in the early modern European period: We invite submissions on topics including, but not limited to: • The relation between the capacity of various organizations to control and monitor territories and population mobility; • artistic and intellectual articulations of experiences with pandemics and population related mobility (or immobility); • legal, political, theological, philosophical, and emotional arguments used to justify or prevent pandemic-related population mobility; • the role of established networks in enhancing or hindering population mobility, the emergence of new networks related to these functions; • the role [...]

Call for Papers Methodological Approaches to Displacement Tirana 15-1-2021       Location: University College LOGOS, Tirana, Albania   After a successful workshop in Lisbon in March 2020 about (i)mobility patterns across the Mediterranean, we will continue our academic discussions in a workshop that will take place at University College LOGOS in Tirana, Albania.   This workshop will discuss, develop and create specific methodologies to address the problem of displacement, a contingency often associated with patterns of (i)mobility. In this context, methodologies will be mostly aimed at the development of a specific conceptual vocabulary to frame the different facets of displacement and dispossession in human (i)mobility in the Mediterranean.   In order to achieve this goal, we are looking for contributions that may depart from academic experience with specific types of historical sources (written documents, material or pictographically culture, portrayals of emotion, etc) as formatting instruments to develop specific case studies. In this context, we would challenge you to reinterpret your own sources and reflect upon your own conclusions, by discussing in Tirana the need to stream line a diversity [...]

PIMO SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE UNIVERSITY OF GRANADA, JANUARY 28-29 2021 2ND CALL FOR PAPERS Given the exceptional circumstances brought about by the Covid19 pandemic the conference organizers might consider the possibility of holding the conference exclusively online in case international travel restrictions or domestic circumstances in Spain constrain us to do so. In the meantime, we recommend all attendants purchase travel cancellation insurance, which is an eligible expense under COST regulations (see the note towards the end of this document).* Please note that these suggestions only apply to PIMo members whose expenses are covered by the COST association. Hartmann Schopper, De omnibus illiberalibus sive mechanicis artibus. Francofurti ad Moenum, 1574, fol. XIr. (Biblioteca Riccardiana Stamp. 14677, with permission) PAPER: MATERIAL AND SEMIOTIC MOBILITY This call is available in PDF form here: Granada Conference CFP The Paper in Motion Work Group is part of the COST Action CA18140 PIMo and seeks to look into paper as a medium for the codification and exchange of information, ideas, emotions and value. Our forthcoming conference in Granada (January 28-29, 2021) will focus upon the [...]

PIMO SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE UNIVERSITY OF GRANADA, JANUARY 28-29 2021 CALL FOR PAPERS PAPER: MATERIAL AND SEMIOTIC MOBILITY   Hartmann Schopper, De omnibus illiberalibus sive mechanicis artibus. Francofurti ad Moenum, 1574, fol. XIr. (Biblioteca Riccardiana Stamp. 14677, with permission) The Paper in Motion Work Group is part of the COST Action CA18140 PIMo  (https://www.peopleinmotion-costaction.org/ ) and seeks to look into paper as a medium for the codification and exchange of information, ideas, emotions and value. Our forthcoming conference in Granada (January 28-29, 2021) will focus upon the material and semiotic mobility of paper: its nature, the conditions for its production, distribution and use, alongside its symbolic dimension. We intend to establish a series of methodological foundations for an approach to paper as a material vehicle for the construction and communication of culture(s) in all their heterogeneous dimensions and as a trope for the many different sorts of activities that relied on this medium as their material repository and facilitator. We will also explore how this materiality contributed, alongside new technologies like print, to the development of communities and communication networks [...]