Symposium

Archives and History. Making Historical Knowledge in Europe during the Nineteenth Century


June 26-28, 2014, Historische Sternwarte


Under which institutional conditions were historians able to undertake historical studies in archives? And how did these conditions of historical-archival research impinge on the production of historical knowledge? In looking into these two inextricably interlinked matters, the symposium highlights an essential, and ultimately scientific, attribute of historical work, rising to prominence in Europe during the long nineteenth century. In order to advance our understanding of the history of the study of records and files, its performance and ramifications for the making of historical knowledge, the symposium draws on different strands of scholarship and gathers experts from different fields of research such as the history of historiography, the history of sciences, anthropology and the history of archives.

The symposium is generously funded by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung and the Universitäts-Bund Göttingen e.V.



Program:


Thursday, 26 June 2014

3.30pm onwards Registration

4.00pm Welcome
Martin van Gelderen (Lichtenberg-Kolleg): Welcome

4.10pm Introduction
Philipp Müller (Universität Göttingen): Annotations. Archives and History

4.30-6.00pm Keynote I
Stefan Berger (Universität Bochum): National Archives and National Master Narratives in Nineteenth Century Europe

Discussion

6.30 Dinner



Friday, 27 June 2014

8.30-10.30am Making Archives
Chair & Comment: Rebekka Habermas (University of Oxford)

Pablo A. Flores (EHESS Paris): La choix de la Nation: Selling, Forming and Selecting the Nationalized Archives
Henning Trüper (IAS Princeton): Making an Archival Scene: Littmann's Autopsy of Aksumite Epigraphy

Coffee Break

11.00-12.30pm Keynote II
Regina Bendix (Universität Göttingen): Archived and Archival Culture -- Ethnographic Reflections on Archival Habits

Lunch

2.15-4.15pm Archival Order
Chair & Comment: Alf Lüdtke (Universität Erfurt)

Bettina Joergens (Landesarchiv NRW Detmold): Theory and History: The Principles of Structuring Archival Holdings
Yann Potin (Archives Nationales Paris): L'esprit de l'histoire dans les travaux d'archive? Les formes contradictoires de la conversion historiographique des archives en France

Coffee Break

4.30-6.30pm Work in the Archive
Chair & Comment: Jörg Bölling (Universität Göttingen)

Pieter Hiustra (Universiteit Leuven): Copyists in the Archives: the Invisible Technicians of Nineteenth Century Historiography
Gerhard Fürmetz (Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv München): Authentic Replica? Media and Modes of Archival Reproductions in the late 19th and early 20th century

Dinner



Saturday, 28 June 2014

8.30-11.00am Archives and Historical Knowledge
Chair & Comment: Hubertus Büschel (Universität Gießen)

Mario Wimmer (University of Berkeley): Foundational Figures of Historical Knowledge
David Laven (University of Nottingham): Nineteenth Century Historians and the Venetian State Archive
Philipp Müller (Universität Göttingen): Historical Research and Politics of Secrecy in Central Europe, c.1799-c.1850

Coffee Break

11.15-12.15am Final Discussion
Chair: Philipp Müller (Universität Göttingen)

Discussants: Regina Bendix (Universität Göttingen)
Stefan Berger (Universität Bochum)
Bettina Joergens (Landesarchiv NRW Detmold)

Lunch (optional)