The study of political union in the late medieval and early modern periods is too often carried out within a conceptual framework derived from models of national statebuilding, in which the unitary nation state is seen as the goal of political development and individual unions are studied in isolation. This conference takes political union out of the national framework and explores the forces that created, sustained, and broke political unions in a comparative framework.

Preliminary schedule (subject to change)

Thursday, September 19

6 pm Plenary lecture

The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, 1385-1569
Robert I. Frost, University of Aberdeen

7:30 pm Reception

At the Consulate General of the Polish Republic, 1530 North Lake Shore Drive

Friday, September 20

9 am: Session 1, Concepts of Union

Chair: Robert I. Frost, University of Aberdeen

The Concept of the Kalmar Union within Scandinavian Historiography

Leidulf Melve, University of Bergen

Ulster and the Anglo-Scottish Union

James Smyth, University of Notre Dame

The Ideological Origins of United States Federalism

Alison LaCroix, University of Chicago

10:30 am: Coffee

11 am: Session 2, Making Unions 1: The Origins of Unions

Chair: Graeme Small, University of Durham

Imagining Union: Britain as a Kingdom in the Middle Ages

Dauvit Broun, University of Glasgow

The Origins of the Kalmar Union

Jens E. Olesen, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University Greifswald

What to Make of the Burgundian Union? Reactions to the Onset of Valois Rule in the Duchies of Brabant and Luxembourg

Pit Peporte, University of Luxembourg

12:30 pm: Lunch

1:30 pm: Session 3, Making Unions 2: The Process of Union

Chair: Hamish Scott, University of Glasgow

The Burgundian Union

Graeme Small, University of Durham

Mazovia and the Polish-Lithuanian Union

Jola Choińska-Mika, University of Warsaw

France as a Composite State

Jim Collins, Georgetown University

3 pm: Coffee

3:30 pm: Session 4, Union States: Centralism and Autonomy

Chair: Michael Brown, University of Aberdeen

Habsburg Monarchy

William O’Reilly, University of Cambridge

Ruthenians and the Union of Lublin (1569): The Question of Ruthenian Autonomy

Tomasz Kempa, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń

Union’s Empire and Empire’s Unions:The Uniting of the Kingdoms and Its Meanings for Empire in the Eighteenth-Century British World

Ned Landsman, SUNY Stony Brook

6 pm: Keynote Lecture

Title to be announced

Patrick Griffin, University of Notre Dame

7:30 pm: Reception

Saturday, September 21

9 am: Session 5, Breaking and Remaking Unions

Chair: Jim Collins, Georgetown University

The Kalmar Union

Biörn Tjällén, University of Bergen

Union and Disunion: Ireland and the English State, 1641-1660

Micheál Ó Siochrú, Trinity College Dublin

Ukraine and Poland-Lithuania

Frank E. Sysyn, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies

10:30 am: Coffee

11 am: - 12:30 pm: Roundtable discussion

Chair: Robert I. Frost, University of Aberdeen

Thomas Bartlett, University of Aberdeen
Constantin Fasolt, University of Chicago
Hamish Scott, University of Glasgow

Sponsored by the Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies; the Dr. William M. Scholl Center for American History and Culture at the Newberry Library; the Centre for Early Modern Studies, University of Aberdeen; the Research Institute for Irish and Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen; and the Consulate General of the Polish Republic in Chicago.

Faculty and graduate students of Center for Renaissance Studies consortium institutions may be eligible to apply for travel funds to attend CRS programs or to do research at the Newberry. Each member university sets its own policies and deadlines; contact your Representative Council member in advance for details.