Lecture – Writing global intellectual histories: the body-political metaphor

Abstract

Is global intellectual history possible and meaningful before modern globalising processes? What should be its object? This paper reflects on questions of method from a longue durée perspective and offers a preliminary examination of a long-standing political metaphor – the ‘body politic’.

Biography

Serena Ferente is full professor of Medieval History at the University of Amsterdam. She is a graduate of the Scuola Normale in Pisa and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. She received her PhD in History and Civilisation from European University Institute in 2007. From 2006 until her appointment at the UvA, she has been, successively, a lecturer, senior lecturer and reader in Medieval and Renaissance History at King’s College London. Ferente’s research focuses on Europe and the Mediterranean in the 14th to 16th centuries, particularly the history of politics and society in Italy, the history of European political discourse, and gender history. She is currently working on a book on the history of 15th century Europe and starting a project on the late medieval Black Sea as a primary border region of Eurasia.

Lecture

• Date and time: tuesday 14 november, 16.00-17.30
• Place: Amsterdam, Bushuis (Kloveniersburgwal 48) in E 1.02