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<P>Call for Papers</P>
<P>Mediterranean Programme</P>
<P>10th Mediterranean Research Meeting</P>
<P>25-28 March 2009 in Montecatini (Italy)</P>
<P>Workshop 15</P>
<P>Directed by Manuel Borutta (Köln) / Athanasios Gekas (Firenze)</P>
<P>Abstract:</P>
<P>The workshop will explore the modern Mediterranean as a Colonial Sea. We will
reconstruct colonial interactions, relationships, entanglements and shared
experiences between Europe, the Maghreb and the Middle East from late 18th
century, when the European colonization of the Mediterranean began, until the
erosion of the imperial order in the 1950s. By bringing together research on
colonial histories on both sides of the Mediterranean, we wish to get away from
a Eurocentric perspective which studies colonialism merely in a one-way
direction from the metropoleis to the colonies. By stressing the ambivalences
and paradoxes of colonialism, we want to overcome the shortcomings of
modernization theory. We will investigate cultural, economic, political and
social aspects of Mediterranean colonialism such as representations of the
Mediterranean, colonial conquest, rule and administration; migration, settlement
and trade; the social reality and cultural complexity of colonial cities and
places. By combining comparative and transnational perspectives, asking for
differences, similarities and entanglements we wish to avoid the ‘methodological
nationalism’ of colonial histories in the Mediterranean. Similar to the
‘thalassological’ approach introduced by Horden and Purcell, we look for a
history of the colonial Mediterranean, rather than for histories in the colonial
Mediterranean. Instead of taking ‘the Mediterranean’ for granted, we will
investigate how it was constructed and used as a concept for the colonization of
Northern Africa and the Middle East. In this respect the workshop will also
historicize Mediterranean studies and highlight their colonial past.</P>
<P>Workshop Description: </FONT><A
href="http://www.iue.it/RSCAS/Research/Mediterranean/mrm2009/desc_pdf/MRM2009_Ds15.pdf"><U><FONT
color=#0000ff
size=4>http://www.iue.it/RSCAS/Research/Mediterranean/mrm2009/desc_pdf/MRM2009_Ds15.pdf</U></FONT></A></P><FONT
size=4>
<P>Call for Papers: </FONT><A
href="http://www.iue.it/RSCAS/Research/Mediterranean/mrm2009/pdf/MRM2009-Paperscall.pdf"><U><FONT
color=#0000ff
size=4>http://www.iue.it/RSCAS/Research/Mediterranean/mrm2009/pdf/MRM2009-Paperscall.pdf</U></FONT></A></P><FONT
size=4>
<P>Application Deadline: 1 September 2008</P>
<P>Application Form: </FONT><A href="http://www.rscas.org/medform.asp"><U><FONT
color=#0000ff size=4>http://www.rscas.org/medform.asp</U></FONT></A></P><FONT
size=4>
<P>Paper Delivery Deadline: 15 January
2009</P></FONT></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>