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Nobles throughout Europe faced a considerable set of religious, political, and military challenges throughout the early-modern era. Amidst the confusion, many nobles sought to increase their status, or at the least to maintain their privileges, with a combination of negotiations with political and religious authorities as well as exploiting opportunities created by an era of upheaval.
Examining the strategies nobles utilized to protect standing in an age of state-building, reformation, and expansion will reveal the fundamental role of the second order in European history and their ability to survive this tumultuous period. By bringing together scholars across disciplinary and national boundaries, and building upon revived interest in the European nobility, we hope to shed new
light on this central social group.
To this end, we are organizing a series of three panels for the upcoming Sixteenth Century Society and Conference annual meeting in Geneva, Switzerland in 28-30 May 2009. As the conference of early modern studies, paper topics may cover any region or time period within the broad framework of 1400 to 1800. We expect participants to produce completed articles that will be pre-circulated among all participants before the conference. This will allow for the panels in Geneva to be focused discussions with broad participation rather than initial presentations. This will provide the greatest benefit by preparing the way for future revision of our work.
Following the conference, we plan to pursue publishing the articles as an edited volume. We believe the interdisciplinary and transnational focus of the contributions will make a significant contribution to the field, helping reveal some of the common mechanisms and strategies that allowed nobles both to prosper and
fail.
If you are interested in presenting a paper as part of one of our panels and later contributing toward the volume, please contact one of us at the email addresses below. Scholars interested in contributing to the future volume but who are unable
to attend the conference in Geneva are also encouraged to contact the editors.
Charles Lipp, Assistant Professor of History, University of West Georgia,
Matt Romaniello, Assistant Professor of History, University of Hawai΄i at Manoa,
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