'What is Dynasty?’
Workshop, June 2015: fostering debate between historians of the ancient, medieval and modern world about the utility of this concept.
'Dynasty and Dynasticism, 1400-1700’
International conference, March 2016: involving multiple disciplines (historians, historians of art, architectural historians, literary studies), working on Europe, China, India and the Near East. Fostering discussion across disciplines and geographical specialisms.
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‘What is Regional Memory?’
Workshop, April 2016: discussing the value of this concept with sociologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, political scientists and literary scholars. This event encouraged these social science specialists to think about how pre-20th century events are remembered, and enabled the historians on the project to discuss memory theory with leading practitioners.
'Renaissance Royal Weddings and Cultural Production'
International conference, April 2018: sought to reconsider cultural output for/about royal weddings which took place between c.1400 and c. 1600, as an important source for contemporary thought about monarchy and ruling families/dynasties. It studied the royal wedding as a nexus of ideas, texts, objects and performances about the Crown and asked how the Renaissance itself affected the culture of royal weddings, with its classicising, Italianate focus.
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Lecture: The Polish-Italian Royal Wedding of 1518
Public lecture, May 2018: In 1518, the Milanese Neapolitan princess Bona Sforza travelled to Krakow to marry King Sigismund I of Poland, in one of the most celebrated weddings seen in Renaissance Central Europe. The wedding is remembered today as bringing Italian food and culture to Poland. However, this lecture by Natalia Nowakowska marking the 500th anniversary of the wedding, explores how it also generated new kinds of political ideas and language.
Globalising Polish History?
International workshop, September 2018: organised in collaboration with Dr. Kate Lebow of Oxford University’s History Faculty, was held at Christ Church, Oxford. Scholars from the USA, Poland and the UK spent two fruitful days discussing whether the rise of global history presents a challenge to the writing of Polish history, or a new opportunity. Project PI Natalia Nowakowska gave a paper on ‘Globalising the Jagiellonians’, setting out some of the ideas she will explore in a new history of this ruling house which she is writing.
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