Mobility and Transformations: New Directions in the Study of the Mongol Empire

International Conference

Mobility and Transformations: Economic and Cultural Exchange in Mongol Eurasia

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

June 29th - July 1st 2014

Mobility and Transformations: New Directions in the Study of the Mongol Empire

Joint Research Conference of the Institute for Advanced Studies and the Israel Science Fundation

Event date: Jun 29 - Jul 4 ,2014 

Organizers:

Michal Biran (The Hebrew University)
Kim Hodong (Seoul National University)





The workshop aims to scrutinize the Mongol Empire from a holistic perspective and to highlight the impact of the unprecedented mobility that characterized the establishment, expansion and consolidation of the Empire on  Mongol Eurasia. Unprecedented in its scope, it comprises of two complementary events: an international conference followed by an international summer school.


1. International Conference: Mobility and Transformation: Economic and Cultural Exchanges in Mongol Eurasia.  The conference examines how various forms  of  mobility – of people, ideas and artifacts  – were instrumental  in creating economic social, cultural  and intellectual  exchanges in the realm ruled by the Mongol Empire and its successor states (and beyond)  in the 13th and 14th centuries, and what was the impact of these movements. Culture is meant here in a broad definition, including also reference to religious and artistic and exchanges.The conference  also  aims to reconstruct and characterize  commercial,  religious and intellectual/scientific networks that operated in the Empire and beyond on a local, regional, and continental scale.


2. International Summer School: New Directions in the Study of the Mongol Empire
   The Summer School looks at the Mongol period as a multifaceted phenomenon in its own right, not only as a chapter in the annals of China, Iran, Russia or Inner Asia, and highlights its  enduring impact on world history. The Mongols combined elements from various imperial traditions (particularly steppe, Islamic, Persian, and Sinitic empires) and made them their own; promoted cross-cultural contacts, religious and ethnic changes; and prompted the transition from the medieval to the early modern world. The Mongols will be discussed in their own terms highlighting the transformations they brought upon the regions under their control and the cross-pollination that took place under their dominion and beyond.
The Summer School convenes some of the leading scholars in the history of the Mongol Empire, all of them contributors to  The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire currently in preparation and edited by Michal Biran and Hodong Kim. The 24 carefully chosen PhD students and Post-Docs from Asia, Europe and North America, will not only enrich their knowledge on the Mongols in world history, but also contribute to a significant scholarly endeavor that will hopefully become the major reference work for the study of the Empire.


The workshop is oreganized and funded mainly by the ERC project Mobility, Empire and Cross Cultural Contacts in Mongol Eurasia.


For details see http://mongol.huji.ac.il/

For the Call for Papers please click here

For the Call for Applications for the Summer School, July 1st-July 4th please click here