53. Basler Renaissancekolloquium "meta-renaissance(s)"

From its onset – and not merely in the Burckhardtian tradition – Renaissance scholarship has been inextricably linked to the genesis of cultural as universal history: an histoire totale of methods and perspectives giving rise to a comprehensive representation of the social. From an historiographical point of view, Renaissance history thus also represents an important chapter in the genesis of global history as an interdisciplinary field of historical inquiry.

With respect to the European Renaissance, the most trodden paths of global contextualization have been carved out by the history of entanglements and (global) intellectual history. By contrast, a comparatively neglected, yet perhaps not less promising attempt to globalise (and thus, by extension, ‘provincialise’) both the European historical experience and its related areas of scholarship is to understand the Renaissance as a generic historical and historiographical model – a causality of circumstances spurring a comprehensive social movement that is (purportedly) based on a re-orientation towards prior traditions.

The 53rd Basel Renaissance Colloquium hence sets out to explore Renaissance history from a diachronic and pan-regional perspective. Our starting point is to conceive of the (or rather, a) Renaissance as a structure of social developments, phenomena, and practices that can be identified and compared across temporal and, above all, spatial boundaries – thus potentially forming a globally applicable pattern of historical analysis. The ensuing notion of Meta-Renaissance builds on and extends existing discourses of decentralization that can be approached from established angles of Renaissance scholarship as well as global history: which combination of (economic, demographic, broadly cultural) circumstances – if any – tend to induce and/or incentivise social processes of re-orientation? How and when can such processes result in original or progressive outcomes as opposed to mere retrospection or collective nostalgia? What is the role of interregional and global connectivities in instigating dynamics of confrontation or emulation? Does the concept of Renaissance describe a tangible historical phenomenon at all, and, if so, one whose occurrence can be meaningfully explained and compared – or even predicted?

Meta-renaissance(s) thus invites to attempt a re-conceptualisation of the Renaissance as a global phenomenon that is explicitly not fixed in either space or time. The meeting is intended as an interdisciplinary forum open to (and seeking to combine) perspectives from e.g. social, political, intellectual, and art history, and/or the (global) history of institutions. We are particularly interested in comparative and/or connected approaches as well as in thematic contributions relating to the use and misuse of historical patterns, the emergence and spread of ideas and artistic practices, narratives and imaginaries of statehood, and the construction and social differentiation of collective identities and forms of belonging, among others.

The colloquium will allow for individual presentations of about 30 minutes in length, followed by questions and a final roundtable discussion.

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