The international conference “Shaping the Modern Body. Fashion, Food, Health and Manners across South Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire (17th-19th centuries)” intends to open a rich field in an under researched variety of sources. The body is the prism through which we intend to analyse four areas of historical enquiry and social interactions: manners and behavior; dress and fashion; food; health. Private and public spaces, meetings and social events, mediators, translators and go-betweens provide an important backdrop to our focus on male and female bodies and the disciplining, feeding, clothing, healing practices that shaped and changed their self-perceptions, experiences and social identities. We aim to explore a set of sources ranging from costume books and portraits; inventories; correspondences and journals; books of etiquette, food and cosmetic recipes and medical prescriptions; photographs and magazines.

Argument

The international conference “Shaping the Modern Body. Fashion, Food, Health and Manners across South Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire (17th-19th centuries)” intends to open a rich field in an under researched variety of sources. The body is the prism through which we intend to analyse four areas of historical enquiry and social interactions: manners and behavior; dress and fashion; food; health. Private and public spaces, meetings and social events, mediators, translators and go-betweens provide an important backdrop to our focus on male and female bodies and the disciplining, feeding, clothing, healing practices that shaped and changed their self-perceptions, experiences and social identities. We aim to explore a set of sources ranging from costume books and portraits; inventories; correspondences and journals; books of etiquette, food and cosmetic recipes and medical prescriptions; photographs and magazines.

The conference is organized in the frame of the European Research Council Consolidator Grant no. 646489 Luxury, Fashion and Social Status in Early Modern South-Eastern Europe (LuxFaSS), hosted by the New Europe College - Institute for Advanced Study, Bucharest

Conveners

• Giulia CALVI
• Constanţa VINTILĂ-GHIŢULESCU

Programme 

Thursday, 23 may

• 09.45 Welcome and Opening Remarks
• 10.00 – 11.00 Keynote lecture Ulinka RUBLACK (University of Cambridge) The Triumph of Fashion: Towards A Global History

Chair: Giulia CALVI (University of Siena & New Europe College, Bucharest)

11.00 - 11.30 Coffee Break

11.30 – 12. 30 Session I: Medical Practices

Chair and Discussant: Mária PAKUCS ("Nicolae Iorga" Institute of History & New Europe College, Bucharest)

• Giulia CALVI (University of Siena & New Europe College, Bucharest) The Body of Nature. Travelling Scientists across the Ottoman Empire (XVI-XVII) 
• Miri SHEFER-MOSSENSOHN (Tel Aviv University) Ottoman Physicians around 1700. Rethinking the Body of the Patient

12.30 - 14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 15.30 Session II: Health, Food and Remedies

Chair and discussant: Rossitsa Gradeva (American University in Bulgaria)

• Mária PAKUCS ("Nicolae Iorga" Institute of History & New Europe College, Bucharest)"They Steal it From the Sultan's Pharmacy": Pharmaceuticals and Medicines in Early Modern Transylvania
• Hedda REINDL-KIEL (University of Bonn)The Balance of Food: Body, Health and Food in the Ottoman Empire (17th-18th century)
• Sorin GRIGORUŢĂ ("A. D. Xenopol" Institute of History, Iași)Weakness of the Body: Patiens and Pysicians in Early Modern Moldavia

15.30 - 16.00 Coffee Break

16.00 – 17.00 Keynote lecture Barbara STOLLBERG-RILINGER (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin)"The Most Beautiful of Women". Empress Maria Theresa's Body Politics

Chair: Constanţa VINTILĂ-GHIŢULESCU ("Nicolae Iorga" Institute of History & New Europe College, Bucharest)

19:00 Dinner

Friday 24 may

10.00 – 11.00 Session III: Food and Social Status

Chair and discussant: Ovidiu Cristea ("Nicolae Iorga" Institute of History)

• Constanţa VINTILĂ-GHIŢULESCU ("Nicolae Iorga" Institute of History & New Europe College, Bucharest)Food, Body and Social Status in South-Eastern Europe (18th–early 19th centuries)
• Castilia MANEA-GRGIN (The Ivo Pilar Institute/University of Zagreb)Food, Drink, and the Body in Englishman Samuel Pepys' and Transylvanian Miklos Bethlen's Autobiographical Writings (17th Century)

11.00 - 11.30 Coffee Break

11.30 – 13.00 Session IV: Textiles and Politics

Chair and discusant: Dariusz KOLODZIEJCZYK (University of Warsaw)

• Giorgio RIELLO (University of Warwick)Europeans’ Views of the Use of the Veil in the Middle East in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
• Graeme MURDOCK (Trinity College Dublin)The Calvinist Body Under Ottoman Suzerainty: Cultures of Complaint in Later Seventeenth- Century Transylvania
• Michał WASIUCIONEK (New Europe College, Bucharest)Body Politics, Textile Politics: Kaftan Exchanges in the Ottoman-Moldavian Relations

13.00 - 14.30 Lunch

14.30 - 16.00 Session V: Women, Beauty and Manners

Chair and discussant: Alex DRACE-FRANCIS (University of Amsterdam & New Europe College, Bucharest)

• Sandra CAVALLO (Royal Holloway, London)Making the Body Beautiful in Early Modern Western Europe and Beyond
• Anastasia FALIEROU (Academy of Athens & New Europe College, Bucharest) Rethinking Modernity: Bodily Practices, Culture of Manners and City Life in the Ottoman Empire
• Nicoleta ROMAN ("Nicolae Iorga" Institute of History & New Europe College, Bucharest) ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?’ Women, Beauty, Virtue and Charms in Nineteenth Century Romanian Society

16.00 - 16.30 Coffee Break

16.30 – 17.30 Session VI: Soul of the People and Travel

Chair and discussant: Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu (Faculty of History, University of Bucharest & Institut für den Donauraum und Mitteleuropa, Vienna)

• Constantin ARDELEANU (University of Galați & New Europe College, Bucharest) Purifying Passengers and Cargo. The Danubian Quarantine between Miasmatics and Contagionists (1830s – 1850s)
• Alex DRACE-FRANCIS (University of Amsterdam & New Europe College, Bucharest) Body and Soul: Physical and Collective Identity in Romanian-language Travel Narratives, 1826-1853

19:00 Dinner