The attraction that cities arouse is not only a contemporary phenomenon. People of all eras have been fascinated by cities and, as a result, have seen them as imagined places concentrating virtues and vices and simultaneously associating them with the presence of power. The walls, the fortresses, the palaces, alongside the streets and squares, endow us with a material perception of the city’s continuous existence, along with other aspects of social and political life, such as sociability among neighbours, craft and mercantile activities and the different manifestations of religious life. A set of identifiers of Western civilisation closely associate with the city. Their inhabitants lived together subject to the spiritual surveillance of the Church and to forms of sociability based on kinship, neighbourhood and Christian solidarity. The contribution brought by the Middle Ages and the beginnings of the Modern World to the history of our cities seems consistent enough to state that this was the period that laid the social, political and economic foundations that cement the current urban reality.

However, studying cities implies mastering the scope available for analysis, given the wealth of frameworks, situations and actors involved. With the aim of providing tools for doctoral students of the history of the urban world in the pre-modern period, this workshop has been set up to provide conceptual frameworks, tools of practical utility and resources to address various particularities of the study of cities in the geographical contexts of Europe and America.

The activities are structured as follows: (i) eight lectures given by specialists who cover topics including historiographic development, documentary sources in archives, the opportunities for online research and access as well as the usefulness of chronological and narrative sources; (ii) practical workshops on social network analysis, the application of databases and spatial representation programs such as Inskape. In these sessions, participants present a summary of their research work, taking into account the theme, objectives, sources and conceptual and elaboration problems. The workshop is aimed at PhD students, researchers and teachers who wish to deepen their knowledge of urban themes, through attendance of the conferences and active participation in the discussions held in small groups with lecturers and tutors.

Speakers
María ASENJO GONZÁLEZ (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
Adelaide Millán da COSTA (Universidade Aberta; IEM-NOVA FCSH)
Jean-Luc FRAY (Université Clermont Auvergne)
José Luis DE ROJAS Y GUTIÉRREZ DE GANDARILLA (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
Carmen LOSA CONTRERAS (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
María Ángeles MARTÍN ROMERA (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich)
David IGUAL LUIS (Universidad Castilla-La Mancha)
Ana Isabel CARRASCO MANCHADO (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
Annabelle MARIN (EHEHI, Casa de Velázquez)

Workshop Organisation

This Workshop spans three working days. Each day is divided into conferences followed by a debate attended by all the participants in the morning before four simultaneous workshops, organised into small groups (at the choice of the doctoral students according to the availability of places) in the afternoons. The workshop languages are Spanish, French, Portuguese and English. Designed mainly as a training and practical activity for doctoral students, the Workshop is also open to student researchers and teachers.

Practical arrangements

Participants (maximum 20): dividing their time between methodological and historiographical conferences and practical workshops given by specialist lecturers/researchers.

Doctoral students will receive a certificate attesting to their participation in a postgraduate training activity.

The registration fee is €50 and payable through Paypal.

Deadline for registration: 27 November 2017, by 5pm (Madrid time)


Location: Madrid, Casa de Velázquez, Ciudad Universitaria, c/ Paul Guinard, 3, E-28040
Organisation: École des hautes études hispaniques et ibériques (Casa de Velázquez, Madrid); Program de Doctorado de Historia y Arqueología y Grupo de Investigación HISERAM de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Institute of Medieval Studies, the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, NOVA University (IEM-NOVA FCSH); Université de Clermont Auvergne
Coordination: María Asenjo González (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Adelaide Millán da Costa (Universidade Aberta; IEM-NOVA FCSH), Jean-Luc Fray (Université Clermont Auvergne)