International Conference «Learning Places» (Online, 3-4 February 2022)

This event aims at tackling the possibility of a comparative view on how, when and where learning institutions of technical and scientific knowledge were organized across empires. By comparing different case studies in fields of knowledge and transformation of the built environment – military engineering, cartography, among others – the goal is to establish a comparative frame of the political-scientific enterprise of empires, across geographies and times.
The conference proposes a comparative reading between formal or non-formal structures of learning and individual agency abilities, that enables the understanding of transformations, influences and entanglements in different geographies from multiple spheres of knowledge and practices.

Keynote Speakers:

Emilie d’Orgeix (École Pratique des Hautes Études PSL)

Historian of architecture. Directeur d’études, Section des Sciences Historiques et Philologiques, École Pratique des Hautes Études PSL. Her research is focused on the circulation of technical knowledge in the early modern period with special interest in hybrid, shared and practical knowledge of engineering. Among her various publications, she co-authored “Atlas manuscrits. Villes et territoires des ingénieurs du roi l’époque moderne” (2017), “Les savoirs de l’ingénieur militaire” (2013). Her latest book (2019) is “Au pied du mûr. Bâtir le vide autours des villes (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle)”.

Karel Davids (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Full Professor Emeritus of Economic and Social History in the Faculty of Humanities and the School of Business and Economics of the VU University Amsterdam. Working in Global History, his focus is on comparative research on the circulation of knowledge, people and goods in the early modern period, Maritime History and the History of Technology. Among other publications in English, he is the author of “Global Ocean of Knowledge, 1660-1860” (2020).

The Conference will be held in a hybrid format in English. The sessions will be open to all but registration will be mandatory.

Scientific Commission:
Alice Santiago Faria (CHAM, FCSH, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal)
Antonio Sánchez (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain)
Beatriz Bueno (Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil)
Fernando Cobos Guerra (MUR – Universidad Alfonso X, Madrid, Spain)
Isabelle Warmoes ( Musée des Plain-reliefs, Paris, France)
José Omar Moncada Maya (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico)
Jorge Correia (Lab 2PT, Universidade do Minho, Guimarães, Portugal)
Margarida Tavares da Conceição (IHA, FCSH, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal)
Maria Paula Diogo (CIUHCT, FCT, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal)
Matteo Valleriani (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany)
Pieter Martens (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium)
Renata Malcher de Araujo (CHAM, FCSH, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Universidade do Algarve, Portugal)
Walter Rossa (CES, Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal)

Executive Commission:
Alice Santiago Faria, CHAM, FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa
Antonieta Reis Leite CES, Universidade de Coimbra
Mafalda Pacheco, CHAM, FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa
Margarida Tavares da Conceição, IHA, FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa
Sandra M.G. Pinto, CHAM, FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa