Crossings: Circulation, Mobility and Transnational Networks from Prehistory to the Contemporary Era, IV INTERNATIONAL PhD STUDENTS AND RESEARCHERS CONFERENCE, Call for papers (deadline : 13 september 2026).

The PhD programs in “Historical Studies” and “Archaeology and Art History” of the Department of Humanities of the University of Naples Federico II promote the IV International PhD Student and Researcher Conference, entitled Crossings: Circulation, Mobility and Transnational Networks from Prehistory to the Contemporary Era.

The Conference aims to investigate mobility engaging the themes of circulation of people, objects, artworks and cultures, to provide a space for debate in order to develop new research perspectives on the topic. The research fields included are history, art history, archaeology and literature, while remaining open to further interdisciplinary areas of research.

The paradigm of mobility, initially developed within the social sciences, conceives the movements of people, objects and knowledge not only as an object of investigation but also as an analytical tool through which to interrogate the cultural geographies and the relations of gender, ethnicity, and class that structure them [Sheller, Urry 2006; Fari 2021]. This perspective has led to increasing attention towards new methodological approaches for analysing, reconstructing and narrating historical processes. Within this framework lie both global history and connected history [Conrad 2016], as well as histoire croisée, which emphasises the entanglement and reciprocal transformation of the historical objects involved in processes of contact [Werner, Zimmermann 2006]. From this perspective, mobility challenges the concept of nation-state as the primary analytical and conceptual unit, encouraging broader chronological and geographical horizons of research and fostering renewed attention to geomorphological categories such as the Mediterranean [Fari 2021]. The contemporary global context — marked by migratory flows, mobility, transnational networks and mass tourism — invites reflection on present-day phenomena but also on their historical precedents. This network of routes ultimately redefines the nature of concepts and spatial categories such as the local, the international, centres and peripheries revealing them as historically constructed categories subject to continuous renegotiation [Pollock 1996].

In historical studies, mobility is a political, social, economic, and cultural phenomenon. From the circulation of individuals and groups to that of artefacts and works of art, from the dissemination of ideas to the transmission of cultural practices, mobility offers a productive framework for reflecting upon the structure of society, such as its formation, stability, and transformation across different chronological and geographical contexts. The adoption of interdisciplinary methodologies enables us to consider the multiple and complex trajectories of historical processes, including a longue durée perspective. Fields of investigation include the movement of people through migration, pilgrimage, and travel, together with the circulation of objects, technologies, artistic productions, ideas, know-how and social and religious practices. Moreover, mobility as an analytical tool allows us to investigate the epiphenomena associated with these processes, including acculturation, ethnogenesis, dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, encounters and conflicts, as well as practices of hospitality and violence. Considering mobility as an object of research also provides an opportunity to reflect upon the relationship between self-representations and narratives of mobility and the construction of belonging, on the one hand, and the imposition of “external” narratives, representations and categories, on the other [Friedrichs, Severin-Barboutie, Heudre 2021], within a genuine “power relations” [Ginzburg 2000] between those who are represented and those who represent, while also acknowledging the grey areas shaped by interaction and mutual influence. Finally, reflecting on mobility also means distinguishing, interpreting and reassessing the “social practices that either attribute importance to or overlook human mobility” [Friedrichs, Severin-Barboutie, Heudre 2021], thereby revealing the implicit hierarchies through which mobility itself is understood.

In archaeology, the concept of mobility constitutes a fundamental interpretive framework for understanding the processes of interaction that have shaped past societies. The circulation of people, objects, ideas and cultural practices is reflected in the archaeological record, documenting exchange networks, migratory phenomena and dynamics of contact. Within this framework, particular importance is attached to the mobility of know-how, linked to the movements of artisans, craftsmen, and specialised workers capable of transmitting, adapting, and reinterpreting knowledge and technologies at both local and transnational scales. At the same time, mobility also concerns the epistemological dimension of the discipline, which is increasingly oriented towards interdisciplinary approaches, integrated methodologies, and new forms of knowledge sharing. The section welcomes papers devoted to the various forms of mobility documented in the archaeological record, to networks of interaction among communities, to the transmission of cultural models, and to the processes through which the material heritage is enhanced and reinterpreted. Within this perspective, and as a particularly fruitful area of interdisciplinary convergence, special attention is devoted to

the illicit circulation of artefacts: a complex form of mobility that, through the networks of the clandestine art market, decontextualises objects by altering their meanings, biographies, and original trajectories. In response to this fragmentation of contexts and meanings, contributions are also encouraged that explore the potential of the most recent investigative methodologies to virtually reconstruct original archaeological contexts and refine current knowledge of individual sites and territories.

Today, art history departs from a disciplinary framework traditionally structured around narratives based on rigid territorial, cultural and interpretive boundaries [Juneja 2023]. In recent years, global and transnational perspectives have attracted increasing attention within scholarly debate, challenging exclusive approaches to the discipline. Considering the global space means understanding geography as a spatial construct that reflects the complex interaction among territorial, cultural, social, and political differences and specificities [Pollock 1996]. Within art historical studies, mobility provides a rich interpretive framework for analysing, from a historical and critical perspective, the circulation of women artists and their male colleagues, models, techniques and knowledge through primary and secondary sources [Angelucci, Verago 2023]. It also invites scholars to consider the trajectories of objects as an essential component of global history, which shapes their value and significance [Joyeux-Prunel 2003]. From places of production to contexts of circulation and eventual musealisation, the movements of artworks and their changing of perception over time reconstruct their biographies while revealing the historical, social, and cultural connections linking places and communities. Furthermore, the diversity of exhibition contexts encourages reflection on how processes of displacement and display shape the public perception of artworks, particularly in relation to their original contexts of production and provenance [Hagedorn-Saupe, Jyrkkiö, Weij 2010].

Within literary studies, mobility has gained increasing importance as a central interpretive category in dialogue with the mobilities turn developed within the social sciences and humanities, which defines circulation as a social and cultural practice capable of generating relationships, networks, connections and new cultural configurations [Sheller, Urry 2006]. From this perspective, mobility constitutes a privileged heuristic framework for investigating the forms and modalities through which texts, rhetorical models, literary genres, traditions – thus, systems of knowledge – circulate across geographical spaces, linguistic communities, and heterogeneous cultural systems. This approach makes it possible to examine the ways in which texts construct, represent and transform space, time, identities and cultural imaginaries, contributing to the formation of categories such as alterity, heresy, and marginality. At the same time, it encourages reflection on the processes of transmission, reception and/or obliteration that reshape the material forms of texts themselves, from oral transmission to writing, from the manuscript codex to the printed book and ultimately to contemporary digital media.

Considering these aspects as a starting point, the Conference aims to highlight the relevance of a scholarly discussion on mobility, which, from Prehistory to the Contemporary Age, addresses historical, art historical, archaeological, historiographical and literary transformations while emphasising the specificities of historical and cultural processes. Below are listed the non-exclusive lines of investigation that can be referred to:

1.     Circulations: people and ideas

• Migration
  • Exile
  • Pilgrimage
  • Begging and vagrancy
  • Local, regional, national, international and global networks
  • The routes of epistolary exchanges

2.     Circulations: objects and artefacts

• Relics, sacred and ritual objects
  • Works of Art
  • Material Culture
  • History of Museums and Collections

3.     Transmission of knowledge and memory

• Educational processes
  • National and transnational networks of intellectual exchanges
  • Traditions and circulation of models
  • “Forgery” as a case category in a case study
  • Public and private archives
  • Intercultural museum education

4.     Social and political mobility

• Rises and declines
  • Normative frameworks
  • Strategies of class affirmation
  • Construction of alterity, dissent, and/or marginality

5.   The international circulation of women and male artists

• National and transnational sisterhood networks
  • Circulation of knowledge and educational practices: Schools, Ateliers and Academies
  • Mobility as a strategy for professional affirmation
  • Exhibition systems and critical reception

The Call is addressed to PhD students in historical, archaeological, historical-artistic and philological-literary sciences and researchers in the same fields achieving the title no more than 5 years ago.

The Conference will be held on 13-14 May 2027 in the Sala ex Cataloghi lignei, Via Porta di Massa 1, of the University of Naples ‘Federico II’. To participate, it is required:

• An abstract in PDF of a maximum of 500 words (bibliography excluded), in English or in Italian, accompanied by a title and 5 keywords;
• A brief biographical profile (maximum 350 words), indicating the affiliated University or Institution, the relevant academic disciplinary field and selected publications.

The deadline for submitting applications is set by 13 September 2026. Paper proposals must be sent via email to: convegnodsunina@gmail.com.

The results of the selection process will be announced by 30 September 2026.

Bibliographical references

Angelucci Caterina, Verago Giulio, Endless Residency. Un osservatorio sulla mobilità artistica, Postmedia books, Milano 2023.

Bellavitis Anna, Croq Laurence, Martinat Monica (dir.), Mobilité et transmission dans les sociétés de l’Europe moderne, PUR, Rennes 2009.

Bodo Simona, Gibbs Kristen, Sani Margherita (a cura di), I musei come luoghi di dialogo interculturale: esperienze dall’Europa, MAP for ID, s.l. 2009.

Bodo Simona, Mascheroni Silvia (a cura di), Educare al patrimonio in chiave interculturale. Guida per educatori e mediatori museali, Fondazione ISMU, Milano 2012.

Brook Timothy, Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World, Profile Books, London 2009.

Burke Peter, The European Renaissance: Centres and Peripheries, Blackwell, Oxford 1998.

Cabouret Bernadette, Peters-Custot Annick, Rouxpetel Camille, La réception des Pères grecs et orientaux en Italie au Moyen Âge (Ve-XVe siècle), Édition du CERF, Paris 2020.

Capitelli Giovanna, Stefano Grandesso, Carla Mazzarelli (a cura di), Roma fuori Roma: l’esportazione dell’arte moderna da Pio VI all’Unità (1775-1870), Campisano, Roma 2012.

Castelnuovo Enrico, Ginzburg Carlo, Centro e periferia nella storia dell’arte italiana, Einaudi, Torino 1979.

Cimoli Anna Chiara, Facchetti Federica, Fassone Alessia, Greco Christian, Matossi Paola (a cura di), Musei e migranti. Gli strumenti dell’incontro, atti del workshop internazionale (Torino, Museo Egizio, 4 giugno 2018, 26 novembre 2018, 18 febbraio 2019), Franco Cosimo Panini Editore, Modena 2022.

Conrad Sebastian, What Is Global History?, Princeton University Press, Princeton-Oxford, 2016.

Dalla Fina Giuseppe Maria (a cura di), Mobilità geografica e mercenariato nell’Italia preromana. Atti del XX Convegno Internazionale di Studi sulla Storia e l’Archeologia dell’Etruria (Orvieto 2012), Annali della Fondazione per il Museo “Claudio Faina” 20, Edizioni Quasar, Roma 2013.

D’Onofrio Andrea, Fughe, espulsioni e nuova Heimat. Il destino dei tedeschi dell’Europa centro-orientale dopo la seconda guerra mondiale, Giannini, Napoli 2014.

Elkins James (a cura di), Is Art History Global?, Routledge, London-New York 2007.

Fari Simone, La storia della mobilità. Uno studio critico sulle origini, l’evoluzione della disciplina e le carenze della letteratura italiana. In Italia contemporanea, 295, 2021, pp. 99-120.

Friedrichs Anne, Severin-Barboutie Bettina, Heudre Antoine, Mobilités, catégorisation et appartenance. Un défi de réflexivité. In Annales. Histoire, Science Sociales, 3, 76, 2021, pp. 445-455.

Ginzburg Carlo, Rapporti di forza. Storia, retorica, prova, Feltrinelli, Milano 2000.

Greenblatt Stephen, Županov Ines, Meyer-Kalkus Reinhard, Paul Heike, Nyíri Pál, Pannewick Friederike, Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2010.

Hagedorn-Saupe Monika, Jyrkkiö Teijamari, Pettersson Susanna, Weij Astrid, Encouraging collections mobility – a way forward for museums in Europe, Helsinki, Finnish National Gallery, 2010.

Hodder Ian, Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things, Wiley-Blackwell, Malden 2012.

Iaia Cristiano, Produzioni toreutiche della prima età del Ferro in Italia centro-meridionale. Comunità artigianali, circolazione di modelli e modi di consumo, Archaeopress, Oxford 2005.

Janes Robert R., Sandell Richard (a cura di), Museum Activism, Routledge, London-New York 2019.

Joyeux-Prunel Béatrice, Les transferts culturels. Un discours de la méthode. In Hypothèses, 2003, 1 (6), p.149- 162.

Juneja Monica, Can Art History be made global? Meditations from the periphery, Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston 2023.

Knappett Carl, An Archaeology of Interaction: Network Perspectives on Material Culture and Society, Oxford University Press, Oxford-New York 2011.

Laganà Annalisa, Lettere d’Artista. Invenzione di un patrimonio nell’Italia del nation-building, FedOAPress, Napoli 2024.

McKenzie Donald Francis, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

1999.

Peters-Custot Annick, Les Grecs de l’Italie méridionale post-byzantine (IXe-XIVe siècle). Une acculturation en douceur, École française de Rome, Rome 2009.

Pollock Griselda (a cura di), Generations and Geographies in the Visual Arts: Feminist Readings, Routledge, London-New York 1996.

Roche Daniel, La ville promise. Mobilité et accueil à Paris (fin XVIIe-début XIXe siècle), Fayard, Paris 2000.

Rolfi Ožvald Serenella, Mazzarelli Carla, Il carteggio d’artista. Fonti, questioni, ricerche tra XVII e XIX secolo, Silvana Editoriale, Cinisello Balsamo 2019.

Sheller Mimi, Urry John, The New Mobilities Paradigm. In Environment and Planning A, 38, 2, 2006, pp. 207-226.

Sterckx Marjan, Tom Verschaffel (a cura di), Sculpting Abroad: Nationality and Mobility of Sculptors in the Nineteenth Century, Brepols, Belgium 2020.

Zanichelli Giuseppa Z., Medioevo e mercato antiquariale in Campania fra le due guerre. In Medioevo tra due mondi: San Nicolò a San Gemini e le alienazioni monumentali nella prima metà del Novecento, a cura di Gangemi Francesco, Michalsky Tanja, Toscano Bruno, Campisano Editore, Roma 2022, pp. 103-120.

Zemon Davis Natalie, Trickster Travels. A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds, Hill and Wang, New York 2006.

Werner Michael, Zimmermann Bénedicte, Beyond Comparison: Histoire Croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity, in History and Theory, 45, 1, 2006, pp. 30-50.

Organizing Committee:

Stefano DE VITA (PhD in Historical Studies, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II [UNINA])

Marta MICILLO (PhD in Historical Studies, UNINA)

Flavia MORACAS (PhD in Historical Studies, UNINA)

Lorenzo ORLO (PhD in Historical Studies, UNINA)

Emilia AMMENDOLA (PhD in Archaeology and Art History, UNINA)

Daniela CAPECE (PhD in Archaeology and Art History, UNINA)

Pasquale DI NOTA (PhD in Archaeology and Art History, UNINA)

Francesca PENNA (PhD in Archaeology and Art History, UNINA)

Claudio PIANESE (PhD in Archaeology and Art History, UNINA) Benedetta TORTORA (PhD in Archaeology and Art History, UNINA)

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