Enfilade

From Brown:

The Global Lowlands in the Early Modern Period, 1300–1800
Dutch and Flemish History and Culture in a Worldwide Perspective
Brown University, 4–5 April 2014

During the early modern period the Lowlands became an entrepôt for global exchanges. They connected outwards to every part of the globe through trade, colonization, expanded knowledge, material culture, and consumption. Antwerp during the sixteenth century, and Amsterdam during the seventeenth century were the first modern cities to dominate world trade and commerce. The Lowlands attracted merchants, immigrants, and visitors while importing and redistributing a vast new array of goods and information, not only effecting the culture, art, and sciences of the Lowlands but touching the lives of many other people, from New Amsterdam and Brazil to Africa, the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia, Japan, and elsewhere. This conference focuses on the Lowlands as an example of how globalization is affecting Renaissance and Early Modern Studies.

Sponsored by Brown University, the Pembroke Center, the History Department, the program in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies, department of the History of Art & Architecture and the John Carter Brown Library. Pre-registration required: click here.

F R I D A Y ,  4  A P R I L  2 0 1 4

5:00  Session 1 | Introduction and Chair: Evelyn Lincoln, Brown University
• Karel Davids, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, “Instrument Makers, Cartographers, and Navigators: The Dutch and Transnational Networks in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic”
• Mariët Westermann, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, “Retrading the Golden Age: Dutch Art and Its Histories”

6:30  Reception

S A T U R D A Y ,  5  A P R I L  2 0 1 4

9:00  Session 2 | Chair: Wim Klooster, Clark University
• Claudia Swan, Northwestern University, “Lost in Translation: Exoticism in Early Modern Holland”
• Dániel Margócsy, Hunter College, “Commercial Visions: Global Trade and Scientific Debate, c. 1700”

10:30  Coffee

11:00  Session 3 | Chair: Jeffrey Muller, Brown University
• Mark Meuwese, University of Winnipeg , “Intention to Exterminate: Massacres in the Making of the Dutch Empire, 1600–1750”
• Julie Hochstrasser, University of Iowa, “Whose Baroque? Drawing and Human Experience among the Khoikhoi”

12:30  Lunch

2:00  Session 4 | Chair: Anne McCants, MIT
• Benjamin Schmidt, University of Washington, “Oriental Despots on Ornamental Desks: On Dutch Geography, the ‘Decorative’ Arts, and the Production of the Exotic World”
• Anne Goldgar, King’s College, London, “The Dutch and Natural History in the Seventeenth-Century Arctic”
• Lissa Roberts, University of Twente, “Deshima as a Center of Accumulation and Management”

4:00  General Discussion | Chair: Harold J. Cook, Brown University