This online conference will explore the nature of the relationships with authority between 1450 and 1750. It will consider authority in its widest sense, encompassing early modern State, Church, patriarchal and societal authorities, with a particular interest in comparing the forces for compliance and continuity, with the contexts in which individuals and groups challenge the ideas and practices of society, either at specific historical moments or due to longer-term shifts. To what extent should we emphasise individual consciousness, or group coherence in compliance and resistance? Some of the types of disruptions and continuities which might be discussed include social conditioning and challenges with regard to moral and religious codes and practices, the performance of gender roles, patriarchal expectations with regard to the roles of parents, children, marriage partners or servants within the household, behaviour with regard to legal and criminal codes, racial or national identities.
Call for Papers
The conference is open to scholars at all academic stages, postgraduate to professor. Delegates are invited to submit abstracts for individual papers or panels on aspects of this theme, including but not restricted to:
• The role of particular individuals in resistance or as agents for change
• The role of group identity or subcultures in resistance or as agents for change.
• Disruptions to and continuities in authority within the family or household
• Changes and continuities in gender roles in Britain, Europe and the Atlantic World
• Disruptions to and continuities in authority in relation to sexual behaviour
• Disruptions to authority prompted by war or violence
• Disruptions to and continuities in attitudes to religious, intellectual or political authority.
• Material culture including dress as a means of transgression.
• Moral codes of behaviour and their changing influence
• Criminal and legal codes of behaviour, their influence, and how they are challenged
• Challenges to political authority by ordinary people, via riots, petitioning and other types of agency
The intention is that papers based on conference presentations may be submitted towards a special issue in an academic journal.
Please submit proposals of 250-300 words for papers of no more than 20 minutes to Dr Fiona McCall, Senior Lecturer in History, School of Social, Political, Literary and Historical Studies, University of Portsmouth at fiona.mccall@port.ac.uk by 30 April 2021
https://www.port.ac.uk/research/research-projects/disrupted-authority