Organized by Karin Friedrich (Aberdeen)
in Cooperation with Patrice Veit (Paris) and Gauvin Bailey (Aberdeen)

 

 

The challenges of modern globalization have rendered the clear definition and location of spaces and boundaries much more difficult. In response, the social and historical sciences have recently begun to focus on interdisciplinary approaches to these concepts. Coinciding with the dissolution of borders, the development of new media technology has triggered an unprecedented opening of hitherto private and undetectable spaces (e.g. via webcam or YouTube). From a historical perspective, these developments justify a re-examination of the concept of space in the Baroque as an epoch in which the concept that had been handed down from classical antiquity was called into question by debates between the Newtonian concept of absolute space and Leibniz's idea of relational space. The conflict between space understood as unchanging, 'empty' body and the fragmentation of space was caused by the contingencies of observation and perspective which took place in a time of religious and political change, at the same time as the encounter with the New World and the expansion of knowledge made people aware of new and global spaces.
Rooms and spaces are understood as categories subject to continual redefinition and construction by the attribution of new and changing functions. In the context of discussions on relational concepts of space, the tension between sacred and profane spaces so characteristic of the Baroque seems to offer a particularly fruitful pattern of analysis. Although seemingly strictly separated from one another, in practice the borders between the two were permeable. Thus sacred space could be created and experienced in a profane environment, and profane spaces could assume new dimensions as a result of sacralisation. What relevance was attributed to the sacred and the profane in the confessional re-definition of spaces after the Reformation? Of interest are the repercussions of the functional competition between both, but also the symbiotic nature of profane and sacred elements. Were such functions really, as Martina Löw has asserted, permanently 'embedded' in spaces? What mechanisms and strategies governed the sacralisation or profanation of spaces, and how were such osmotic processes made visual in the spaces themselves?
The failure of universal monarchy and religious unity in the West resulted in a new variety of concepts of space which were often experimental and temporary in nature. How was the Baroque world represented in fictive and imagined spaces and what role did the religious, scientific and aesthetic fragmentation of the Baroque period play in new discoveries such as draughtsmanship based on exact dimensions, developments in optical sciences, or new forms in architecture and landscape gardening? How was this variety reflected in painting, in curiosity cabinets and Kunstkammern, in laboratories, in designs for stage sets, gardens of paradise and royal allegories, aristocratic houses or in the architectural and acoustic constructions of spaces for music performance? Experiments with illusionistic spaces like the camera obscura or the hall of mirrors contributed to the manipulation of real space into imagined or ideal forms. To what extent were an internal locus meditationis and devotion actualised in Baroque performance, composition, the art of the emblem and literature? How did such externalisation, in turn, create or break down real visual boundaries through optical illusions and distortion? Were these processes reflected in new literary genres such as the novel?
The theatrical element of imagined and experimental spaces is also mirrored in the intellectual world of the Baroque. The fragmentation of a humanist 'republic of letters' caused by religious and constitutional controversy was manifest in libraries, lecture theatres and academies where scholarly knowledge sought to overcome the confines of these enclosed spaces of communication. What boundaries were set by scholarly spaces and how were they broken down by intellectual networks, emigration or the opening up of new fields of scholarly activity?
All these themes point to the fact that the Baroque was a period of transition and liminality. The tension between the familiar and the experimental, the worldly and the sacred, imagination and reality culminated in the intercultural exchange between the old and new worlds, in the translation of concepts of space across global boundaries. The liminal character of borders, which did not prohibit but permitted inter-cultural exchange, gave rise to hybrid constructions of space, of 'in-between' spaces with completely new attributes. What is of interest here is the moment of cultural translation into another space or dimension, or into another medium or milieu. Ruptures, discontinuities, mis-translations between the familiar and the foreign, 'otherness' and alterity, assertions of claims to power and universalisation all play a very important role in this transformational process of translation. This neglected aspect of the expansion and composition of Baroque spaces forms a link between the following sessions proposed for the conference:

I. Sacred and profane spaces
II. Imagined and experimental spaces
III. Networked and fragmented intellectual spaces
IV. Translated and liminal spaces

We are particularly interested in contributions which examine new source material and offer new interpretations of Baroque space and its boundaries. It is hoped that the involvement of many disciplines will contribute to an international and interdisciplinary exchange among experts for the Baroque period.

Proposals (one page A4 stating the address from which you will travel) for papers in one of the four sessions or addressing the general theme of the conference (20 minutes) should be sent by 30th May (preferably per email) to:

bepler@hab.de

or: Wolfenbuetteler Arbeitskreis für Barockforschung, Dr. Jill Bepler, Postfach 1364, 38299 Wolfenbuettel

Regristration form