Gifts and Tribute in Early Modern Diplomacy: Global Perspectives

Organised by GHCC Warwick, FU Berlin & Universität Zürich

Friday 8 December 2018 - Warwick in Venice, Palazzo Pesara Papafava, Calle de la Rachetta Cannaregio 3764, 30121 Venezia

Programme

8.30-9.00: Arrival & Coffee

9:00-9.15: Welcome Birgit Tremml-Werner (Universität Zürich) & Guido van Meersbergen (Warwick)

9.15-10.30: Panel 1 – Chair: Guido van Meersbergen (Warwick)

• Zoltán Biedermann (UCL) – ‘Symmetry or Asymmetry: Gift-Giving and the Making of Global Power Relations in the Sixteenth Century’
• Susumu Akune (Kyoto University) – ‘Behind the “Cross”: Seventeenth Century Jesuits’ Negotiation with South East Asian Potentates’

Discussant: Miki Sugiura (Hosei University, Tokyo/ Warwick visiting professor)

10:30 – 11.00: Coffee

11.00-13.00: Panel 2 - Chair: Lisa Hellman (FU Berlin)

• Sinem Casale (University of Minnesota) – ‘Gifts and Rarities and Delicacies and Tributes: A Semantic and Ontological Early Modern Ottoman Puzzle’
• Rubén González Cuerva (CSIC, Madrid) – ‘A Diamond or a Bear: the Spanish Court’s practices of Gift-Giving with extra-European Embassies’
• Rémi Dewière (EUI, Florence), ‘Bringing Tribute or Buying Peace? Gift-Giving in Multilayered Sahelian diplomacy (15th-19th c.)’

Discussant: Giorgio Riello (Warwick)

13.00-14:30: Lunch – Trattoria Storica, Cannaregio 4858, 30121 Venezia

14:30-15.45: Panel 3 – Chair: Birgit Tremml-Werner (Universität Zürich)

• Fuyuko Matsukata (University of Tokyo) – ‘Gifts and Commissions as a Replacement of Border Tax? Reevaluation of the VOC gifts to the Tokugawa Shogun’
• Michael Talbot (University of Greenwich) – ‘British Ambassador, Ottoman Official? Gifts and Ottoman universalism in the 18th century’

Discussant: Anne Gerritsen (Warwick)

15.45-16.15: Coffee

16.15-17.00: Conceptual Comments – Christian Windler (Universität Bern)

17.00-18.00: Closing Roundtable – led by Lisa Hellman (FU Berlin)

19.00: Dinner – La Vecia Cavana, Rio Terà SS. Apostoli, 4624 – 30131 Venezia