1st Edition
Reimagining Mobilities across the Humanities Volume 2: Objects, People and Texts
Volume 2: Objects, People and Texts explores the movement of individuals and peoples and the circulation of material objects and books and texts. Through a series of short chapters, mobility is employed as an elastic, inclusive and multifaceted concept across various disciplines to shed light on a geographically and chronologically broad range of issues and case studies. In doing so, the concept of mobility is positioned as a powerful catalyst for historical change and as a fruitful approach to research in the humanities and social sciences.
Like its sister volume, this volume is edited and written by members of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Mobility and the Humanities (MoHu) at the Department of Historical and Geographical Sciences and The Ancient World (DiSSGeA) of the University of Padua, Italy. The structure of the book mirrors the Theories and Methods, and Ideas thematic research clusters of the Centre. Afterwords from leading scholars from other institutions synthesise and reflect upon the findings of each section.
This volume, together with Volume 1: Theories, Methods and Ideas, makes a compelling case for the use of mobility studies as a research framework in the humanities and social sciences. As such, it will be of interest to students and researchers in various disciplines.
Introduction to Volume 2: Objects, People and Texts
Lucio Biasiori, Federico Mazzini and Chiara Rabbiosi
Section 1: Objects
1. Textiles in Imperial Landscapes: Tracing the Mobility of Textile Products and Craftspeople in First-Millennium BCE Assyria
Salvatore Gaspa
2. Renaissance Female Luxury Garments on the Move: When Brides’ Silk Brocades Ended Up Dressing Ecclesiastics (Florence, 14th-15th Centuries)
Isabelle Chabot
3. Political Objects in Motion across 19th-century Europe
Enrico Francia and Carlotta Sorba
4. The Repatriation and Uneven Biomobilities of Human Remains
Maria Teresa Milicia
5. Beyond the Immobility of "Museum Pieces": Variations on Mobility in the Collections of a Museum of Geography
Chiara Gallanti and Mauro Varotto
Afterword
Laurent Feller
Section 2: People
6. Amoveatur ut promoveatur: the Careers of Military Judges in Italy and the Colonies
Nicolò Da Lio, Giovani Focardi and Adriano Mansi
7. Re-enacting Community Belonging through Emotions and Memories: German Expellees’ and Italian Repatriates’ Circular Letters
Cecilia Molesini and Alessandra Vigo
8. Entrepreneurial Mobility between Italy and South America: The Case of Argentina
Giovanni Luigi Fontana and Javier Pablo Grossutti
9. Slow Mobility: Processes of Agency among Refugees Eating and Living at the Tiburtina Station in Rome
Giovanna Palutan and Donatella Schmidt
10. Exploring Tourism ‘Slow’ Mobilities
Margherita Cisani and Chiara Rabbiosi
Afterword
Mimi Sheller
Section 3: Texts
11. Jewish Law and Greek Science: Translation- and Mobility-Studies in light of the Ancient Greek Translation of the Old Testament
Luciano Bossina
12. Movable Laws? The "extra edictum" Reproduction and Circulation of the Leges Langobardorum in Early Medieval Italy
Gianmarco De Angelis
13. A Tool for the Mobility of Texts, Persons, and Ideas: The Vocabulista in Arabico
Martina Elice and Cecilia Martini
14. The Mobility of Greek Manuscripts between East and West: The Biblioteca Marciana in Venice as a Case Study
Margherita Losacco
15. Communication and Religious Mobility: A European Intelligence Network, 1560–1590
Vittoria Feola
Afterword
Guglielmo Cavallo
Biography
Lucio Biasiori is associate professor of early modern history at the University of Padua, Italy. He was previously a fellow of the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy, and assistant professor in early modern history at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Italy. His research encompasses the early modern period, with particular reference to the cultural, religious and political history of 16th-century Europe, studied in an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural framework.
Federico Mazzini is associate professor of digital history and history of media and communication at the University of Padua, Italy. His previous work has focused on the sociocultural history of the First World War, particularly the peasant experience of the trenches and the popularisation of technoscience. He is currently working on various aspects of digital history, including web archiving, metadata and historical communication online, and ‘technical cultures’, such as radio hams, phreaks and hackers, in the twentieth century.
Chiara Rabbiosi is associate professor of economic and political geography at the University of Padua, Italy. Her previous research has dealt with the social and spatial dimensions of urban studies and consumer culture, including the critical geographies of shopping tourism, cultural heritage and place branding. She is currently working on tourist spatial imaginations of Europe, and on the transit of tourism (including walking and multi-modal transport), approaching tourism mobilities in an embodied and performative way.
"Exhaustive, inclusive, and innovative, Reimagining Mobilities across the Humanities is a treat for both professionals and newcomers to this discipline and capable of generating new ideas and perspectives. I wholeheartedly recommend it to a broad audience, confident that it will pique their interest in the ever-expanding field of mobility studies."
Hager Ben Driss, Associate Professor of English, University of Tunis, Tunisia
"Mobilities of ideas and concepts, of material things and images – are just some of the cases considered in theoretically sophisticated and geographically diverse chapters. Reimagining Mobilities is a foundational work as it provides a unique tool to understand mobilities in history, from ancient times to the present."
Giorgio Riello, Chair of Early Modern Global History, European University Institute, Italy
