Drawing on the combined expertise of faculty and graduate students in the humanities at UC Berkeley and the University of Strasbourg, the project studies the "crossroads of knowledge" (carrefours des savoirs) that connected the Republic of Letters in the age of the first globalization. Moving away from the traditional focus on capital cities, we turn our attention to smaller "contact zones," such as ports and frontier towns that enabled the circulation knowledge across linguistic, cultural and religious barriers. The France-Berkeley fund will create an international research group that will meet in two workshops and present its results both in print and digital form (in a collective volume and a website).
UC PI:
Diego Pirillo
Department of Italian Studies, UC Berkeley
France PI:
Vincenza Perdichizzi
Institut d'études romanes, Université de Strasbourg