Between the 15th and 17th centuries, the most important feature of European culture was that Europes cultural flux ultimately produced remarkable similarities in spite of numerous conflicts. Although some aspects of European culture achieved hegemonic status, the interpretation of culture in Europe has not yet been adequately described as an area of both homogeneity and diversity. Both the shifting relationships between high and low culture and social mobility have contributed to preserving a multifaceted Europe .
The notion of cultural exchange incorporates a complex process of borrowings and rejections. The cross-currents under discussion result from many types of circulation : of people, of material and cultural goods, of ideas, of concepts, of artistic, literary and scientific forms and of methods (involving both knowledge and techniques). They encountered different kinds of resistance, invisible frontiers which did not necessarily coincide with political or linguistic frontiers. This programme will permit comparison between various European regions (not necessarily states) in order to locate and study differences, but also resemblances, between geo-cultural areas.
Our most important research objectives are therefore to identify and analyze the various forms of European cultural currents and exchanges through the deeply-related notions of cultural coherence and diversity. To do this, it is essential to proceed from the idea that every cultural phenomenon forms a kind of mediation between some men and women, and a differentiation in relation to others. In order to situate these various non-verbal mediations in the landscape of societies, it is necessary to approach them by studying the chains of meaning that they have produced throughout Europe. Some of these collective forms of mediation, like emblems or Jesuit pedagogy, are well known to scholars. But other paths of investigation have yet to be satisfactorily explored in order to understand and describe the way that Europe created its cultural integration despite - and through - differentiation.
Four interrelated themes will form the central axis of this project :
- Religion, seen as Europes single most important expression, manifestation and means of both cultural integration and cultural differentiation.
- Cities will be investigated as the most important locations of cultural exchange in early modern Europe.
- Information and communication provide the means of cultural exchange via texts and images, in the age between the printing press and the early newspapers.
- Man and the exchange of material goods provides a central domain of cultural exchange, one which directly affects both men and women. It enables us to study processes of identification and differentiation through gender approaches, as well as delineating geo-cultural areas and social subcultures throughout Europe and, last but not least, for analyzing cultural innovation.
Each team will work separately, but all will contribute to exploring the general problems under investigation throughout the four years of the programme (1999-2002). It will begin and end with plenary conferences establishing the links between each theme :
- Concepts of European Culture in 1999 will focus on the concepts of cultural integration and cultural differentiation through a dialectic of action and reaction. It will consider the impact of religions, cities, information and material culture both to unite and to differentiate Europeans between 1400 and 1700. After measuring the strengths or weaknesses of these processes through these four topics, it will also chart a provisional view of cultural areas, cultural borders, and general trends (e.g., to describe and explain urban religious architecture or the use of images to convey gender stereotypes) with the help of invited experts in different fields of the Humanities and the Social Sciences. The conference will include such topics and concepts as cultural negotiation, reception, resistance, their uses and dangers. It will also attempt to divide Europe into culture areas from different points of view (religious, economic, political, artistic), essentially according to the programmes four workshops, and determine to what extent the different maps overlap or coincide.
- Perceptions of Cultural diversity in 2002 is intended to sum up the efforts of the four workshops and to seek a methodological framework for early modern European cultural history, since the programme will begin with a sample of methods applied empirically, with the objective of developing a common methodology during its four years of operation.
Contributions for the 1999 plenary meeting will be circulated in provisional form before the meeting and issued in final, revised form within a few years. The results of the plenary meetings and workshops should enable us to publish eight volumes, half of which should appear before the end of the programme (starting about the third year), with materials chosen by the team leaders of each workshop and approved by an editorial board appointed by the Steering Committee. The other half will be published as final syntheses from each team after completion of the programme, with their orientations and contents being clarified during the final plenary conference in 2002.
