Call for papers

Een internationaal congres rond het thema Diffusion and Circulation of Masonic Practices in Europe and in the Mediterranean, 1720-1820, zal plaatsvinden op 2 en 3 juli 2009 aan de Universiteit van Nice Sophia Antipolis in Frankrijk. Het evenement wordt georganiseerd door het Centre de la Méditerranée Moderne et Contemporaine. De tekst van de call for papers luidt:

'The history of Freemasonry today is undergoing significant growth throughout the academy - from graduate students to established scholars - but it has also reached a crossroads. While earlier generations of historians tended to focus on the internal dynamics of the brotherhood - the institutional life of lodges as well as the sociology of membership - more recent trends have focused attention on the evolving relationship between Freemasonry and its wider context from the Enlightenment to the present day, be it the political, social, cultural or religious environment.
As these particularly rich new lines of inquiry are pursued, it has also become increasingly urgent to reevaluate Masonic research methodologies. In the first instance, historians will need to give much more serious consideration to working collectively rather than in isolation, as much of the history of Freemasonry still remains uncharted territory. Secondly, explicit and intensified dialogue and exchange with other fields will be critical to the reformulation of a more interdisciplinary perspective in Masonic history.
In this spirit, the conference represents the beginning of a biannual cycle of thematic meetings devoted to the most fruitful research areas. The objective is clear: To federate research, to gather several generations of scholars and to identify the most promising research fields in order to further develop them in research teams, and through senior scholars and their graduate students.
For this first meeting, the organizing and scientific committees have chosen to focus on the circulation and diffusion of Masonic practices within the Euro-Mediterranean space. This topic operates under the assumption that Freemasonry was not simply a social fact but also a cultural one. Central to this project will be assessing both in the long and short term cultural transfer across a myriad of frontiers - be they cultural, confessional, political, linguistic or gendered - as well as examining the phenomena of appropriation and the invention of tradition; the latter was of particular importance for an institution that claimed an unbroken connection to Noah and Adam.
We are very interested in papers that make use of newly accessible archival holdings that allow scholars to move beyond the confines of western European Freemasonry and explore how Masonic practices circulated either in the eastern Mediterranean or eastern and central Europe as well as Scandinavia.'

Deadline voor paper proposals is 1 maart 2009. Voorstellen moeten een samenvatting (max. 15 regels), korte biografie en publicatielijst omvatten. Zowel Frans- als Engelstalige bijdragen zijn welkom. Contact: Prof. Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire, pierre-yves.beaurepaire@unice.fr.