220145 The World of the Tavern in Early Modern Europe: Conceptual Approaches in Transnational Perspective (K) (WiSe 2011/2012)

This module uses public houses as windows into socio-cultural transformations in early modern Europe (particularly England and the Holy Roman Empire between c. 1400-1800). Based on a broad spectrum of primary sources (registers, travel reports, visual evidence), secondary works and wider theoretical / conceptual approaches, short lectures, student (group) presentations, team tasks and plenary discussions (in English) will explore the multifunctional role of drinking establishments in transnational perspective. During this ‘golden age’, public houses moved beyond their core services to become nodal points of local and long-distance exchange. As public stages in face-to-face societies, they were instrumental for the negotiation of personal reputations. Following introductory surveys of sources and historiography, classes will explore aspects like regulation (in the context of state-building), communication structures and emerging public sphere, gendered notions of honour, church-tavern relations (in the age of confessionalization), the constitution of space and political instrumentalization (for local government services as well as the articulation of ‘hidden transcripts’).

The module is structured in five parts:

Introduction (1 2-hour session): Themes, presentation topics and general organization: Friday 11 November 2011 (13-14 hours; mandatory;)
Block 1 (6 sessions): ‘Patrons, Consumers and Good Fellows’ (Monday 12 December and Tuesday morning 13 December 2011)
Block 2 (6 sessions): ‘Politics, Religion and Crime’ (Monday 19 December and Tuesday morning 20 December 2011)
Individual tutorials (Tuesday afternoon 20 December 2011)
Oral exam (Friday 3 February 2012)

Further information and registration by e-mail:b.kumin@warwick.ac.uk

Beat Kümin is Professor of Early Modern European History at the University of Warwick in England. He works on social centres (parish churches, public houses) in England and the Holy Roman Empire. Publications include The World of the Tavern in Early Modern Europe (co-edited essay collection, 2002); Drinking Matters: Public Houses and Social Exchange in Early Modern Central Europe (2007); and Public Drinking in the Early Modern World, vols 2-3 (co-edited source collection, 2011).

Bibliography

James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, 1990), chapter ‘Social Sites’; Phil Withington, ‘Company and Sociability in Early Modern England’, Social History 32 (2007), 291-307.