Power and the City in the Netherlandic World, 1000-2000

 

Conference, Columbia University, New York, June 11-12, 2001

Organized by the Society for Netherlandic History

 

Cities loom large in the history of the Low Countries. Since the Middle

Ages, the densely-populated territories by the North Sea have

constantly known high levels of urbanization and tightly-integrated

networks of cities, large and small. The Low Countries' early and

sustained "urban-ness" has entailed certain distinctive political, social

and cultural patterns, such as the persistence of relatively low levels of

state centralization and the early superseding of landed by commercial

wealth as a source of power and status.

 

This conference aims to assemble an international group of scholars for

closer study of the historical relation between cities and power in this

region (i.e., today's Netherlands and Belgium, including formerly

Netherlandic parts of Northern France) as well as in overseas

Netherlandic settlements. The concept of "power" as used here refers

specifically to coercive power in its varied manifestations - from military

oppression to forms of social compulsion (charivari, ostracism, denial of

credit) to the manipulation of public opinion. It could be wielded either

"from the top down" or "from the bottom up," and could generate

forceful resistance. Papers will address the wielding of power within

cities, against cities, between cities, and by cities over their hinterland

(or wider environment). Participants are encouraged to adopt, whenever

possible, a comparative perspective, with regard both to the non-

Netherlandic world and to non-urban or weakly urbanized settings.

 

Send a one-page abstract by February 15, 2001, to Willem Klooster,

University of Southern Maine, Department of History, College of Arts

and Sciences, College Avenue, Gorham, Maine 04038. Phone: (207) 780-

5323. Fax: (207) 780-5571, e-mail: { GOTOBUTTON BM_1_

klooster@usm.maine.edu}klooster@usm.maine.edu