The Levant and Europe: Shipping and Trade – Networks of People and Knowledge, London, November 2–4, 2016

In November 2016, the Levantine Heritage Foundation is organizing its second interdisciplinary conference, entitled “The Levant and Europe: Shipping and Trade – Networks of People and Knowledge,” in London, at Europe House and the Hellenic Centre.

Building on the success of the groundbreaking first international conference on  Levantines in Istanbul, 2014, this conference will emphasize the theme of trade as the central dynamic in the creation of a Levantine world, with complex economic networks giving rise to equally complex social, cultural, political, and material interactions and syntheses.

Although the Levant has been part of Eurasian trade networks for millennia, it played an increasingly central role, and provided a formative geocultural space for exchanges, during the creation of the modern world: the economic expansion of capitalism, accompanied by imperialism, nationalism, and the movement of people through the Levant shaped the Middle East as we know it. The essential “engine of history” in most of these historical dynamics was trade, providing the material exchanges and networks, which in turn generated an array of social and cultural interactions.

Topics of consideration for the proposals will include, but not be limited to:

• Trade networks and institutions;
• Consular, diplomatic and commercial interactions
• Banks, manufacture, and shipping;
• Individual or family histories that reveal aspects of the Levantine world;
• Movement of people, migrations, establishment of immigrant communities;
• Flows of technology, political movements, ideologies, and other sociocultural forces.

We invite proposals for panels as well as individual presentations.

Two travel grants (up to £500) are available to PhD students who will be selected to present at the conference.