Periodic Reporting for period 2 - KnowStudents (From East to West, and Back Again: Student Travel and Transcultural Knowledge Production in Renaissance Europe (c. 1470- c. 1620))
Período documentado: 2022-05-01 hasta 2023-10-31
This project is the first comprehensive study of transcultural knowledge production in early modern Europe. Its underpinning idea is that the students who travelled from central-eastern Europe to attend renowned universities were active agents of this transcultural knowledge. During their stays abroad they created personal hand-written notebooks containing lecture notes and any other texts that attracted their interest. Conserved in the archives of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, these notebooks provide us with unique and first-hand documentary evidence of the impact of multiple cultural stimuli on knowledge. Combining intellectual history, history of migration and physical analysis of documents, the project considers the period from the rise of this practice among students, due to an unprecedented availability of paper (c. 1470), up to the Thirty Years’ War, which restricted their travels. Its objectives are to analyse: the relationship between academic and non-academic knowledge gathered in the students’ notebooks; the emergence of new forms of self-learning, examining the criteria of text selection; and the contact between humanist culture and the cultures of the countries the students came from. Early modern studies of knowledge production have traditionally focused on academic teaching. Although the cosmopolitan nature of universities is an established fact in these studies, the impact of different cultures (languages, artistic-literary interests, religious practices) on knowledge creation has been neglected, due to lack of evidence. Students’ experience makes it possible to observe links between knowledge and a plurality of languages and traditions which best reflects the European scenario at the time. The project explores knowledge creation from an unprecedented angle, fostering a rethinking of the notion of centre and peripheries in Renaissance studies and breaking important new ground for research on intellectual history.
The implementation of the action for this reporting period was in line with the project's planned tasks. Lockdowns due to the pandemic and the more recent war situation in the neighboring country were managed through the risk management plan which worked excellently The team analysed a very consistent number of documents and, consequently, the dissemination work was also very intense. This was marked by the organizing of two workshops in Warsaw, the participation of the team in two international conferences of the Renaissance Society of America (Spring 2021 and 2022), and participation in other conferences by individual team members (Budapest, Gdańsk, London, Vienna, Warsaw), and the creation of a Study Centre based at the host institution (Winter 2021). All these actions were included in the program.
As for the major achievements, all team members – except the PhD students – have submitted an article to international journals, of which one has already come out. The others article will be published between summer and fall of this year. The doctoral students will also submit an article by the end of the summer. In addition to this, a book series with the De Gruyter publishing house was launched at the beginning of May 2022 and the first volume within the series will be published early next year.
As for the major achievements, all team members – except the PhD students – have submitted an article to international journals, of which one has already come out. The others article will be published between summer and fall of this year. The doctoral students will also submit an article by the end of the summer. In addition to this, a book series with the De Gruyter publishing house was launched at the beginning of May 2022 and the first volume within the series will be published early next year.
The project is taking the international experience of central-eastern students as a key to understanding knowledge production in this period, bringing together the history of ideas and the history of culture. The study is currently show that the anthologies that the students produced offer an ideal synthesis of academic knowledge and multiple cultural inputs, making it possible to see knowledge creation in the early modern age in a new light. This novel concept is also allowing to observe the development of European intellectual activity through subjects other than the great thinkers of the time, who after their study trips played their part in the civil society of the time.