[1] Cross disciplinary approaches to domestic cultures in premodern cities in Europe and beyond, 13th-17th centuries
From: Lien Vandenberghe
Date: 4 Sep 25
Deadline: 22 October 2025

Julie De Groot (Universiteit Antwerpen), Daniel Lord Smail (Harvard University) and Juan Vicente García Marsilla ( Universitat de València) are organizing a Main Session on "Cross disciplinary approaches to domestic cultures in premodern cities in Europe and beyond, 13th-17th centuries" (Session 19).

This session examines premodern urban domestic cultures through interdisciplinary methods, integrating archaeology, historical texts, material culture, iconography, and social history. By combining diverse sources, it reveals the complexities of domestic life and its cultural dynamics in cities across Europe and beyond.

Please feel welcome to submit a paper proposal for this session. Please do not hesitate to contact the organizers directly via mail (julie.degrootuantwerpen.be) if you have any further queries.

For more information on the conference and the submission of paper proposals, please visit the website:https://www.eauhbarcelona2026.eu/call-for-papers/.

The deadline for the submission of paper proposals is: 22 October 2025.

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[2] Beyond Transcendence. Understanding Networks of Religious Belonging between Local Urban Parishes and Global Institutions since the Turn of the 20th Century
From: Beate Löffler
Date: 7 Sep 25
Deadline: 22 October 2025

Session organisers: Beate Löffler (Dortmund), Veronika Eufinger (Hannover)

It is well known that the history of the European city has been closely linked to Christianity over the centuries. There is a strong awareness for the impact of parish structures and Christian institutions – usually of a domineering denomination – on the development, transformation and resilience of the urban fabric both socially and architecturally. In recent decades, there has also been an increased understanding of religious diversity, which is lived in parallel to the dominant pattern as a matter of course. While this has stimulated both discourse and research – above all on conflicts of interpretative sovereignty – the perspectives of fields such as religious studies, sociology or architecture and urban planning still largely develop with only few overlaps. However, they all contribute to understand the social and institutional networks within the city and beyond that anchor and are anchored in places of worship and religious belonging.

The panel aims at linking the different approaches to the study of religious bodies and their interaction with the urban and at gaining a comprehensive insight into the different scales applied to connect local communities to their cities, to regional religious infrastructure and global faith systems. We seek to understand how religious bodies and their social networks contribute to the resilience of their social and built environment.

We invite scholars from various disciplines, including but not limited to urban history and urban planning, sociology, religious and cultural studies and architectural history, to present case studies of cooperation independent of religion or denomination, both intra-confessional, between denominations or between religious bodies and the secular world.
This might include cases of handing down, sharing and/or inheriting spaces of worship or parish buildings (with or without heritage status) and networks of ecumenical cooperation up to inter-faith initiatives or address the challenges of space making for communities consisting of commuting faithful.
Among others, the contributions can touch on questions like which goals or missions the networks are working towards, who the founding and supporting actors are, what makes the network an urban affair or in which way they are religious. The contributions might also address how networks affect the appropriation and utilisation of architecturally defined spaces, for example with regard to symbolic forms or the renunciation of such.

Submissions (no more than 450 words) should be made via the EAUH site: https://www.eauhbarcelona2026.eu/call-for-papers/

An overview of the individual sessions is available here https://www.eauhbarcelona2026.eu/sessions/# and the specific session here https://www.eauhbarcelona2026.eu/sessions/#session87

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[3] Governing Water: Administrative Responses to Urban Water Management in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (1200-1800)
From: Nele De Raedt
Date: 9 Sep 25
Deadline: 22 October 2025

Organized by Nele De Raedt (UCLouvain), Merlijn Hurx (KU Leuven), Jaap-Evert Abrahamse (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Water management is a central issue in urban governance. Both an essential resource for human life and a potential existential threat, water plays a crucial role in daily urban environments, from providing potable water, maintaining sanitary conditions, to facing environmental hazards such as prolonged droughts or flood risks. In addition, water determined the economic success of cities as waterways were indispensable for long-distance trade. Furthermore, the supply and drainage of water is by definition a collective problem that must be addressed at the level of the urban community. This presented local governments with numerous challenges that required city-wide responses. While water is ubiquitous, our relationship with water is deeply shaped by cultural factors. Urban communities across the world have historically developed very distinct approaches to addressing challenges posed by water. Communities are necessarily dependent on natural sources for their water supply, ranging from rivers and natural springs, to groundwater and rainfall. Also, the unpredictability of these natural supplies, the excess or the lack of it, caused by prolonged dry spells or floods, temporarily exposed urban communities to numerous risks.

Historical research has demonstrated that these issues were not unfamiliar to late medieval and early modern administrations (1200-1800). Indeed, in recent years research on the ways societies have dealt with different aspects of water has gained traction. However, the critical role of the development of administrative bodies remains insufficiently explored. In this historical period, numerous cities across the globe developed local governing bodies; coping with the challenges of water management was a central administrative issue. Additionally, attitudes toward water were significantly influenced by social, medical,and religious beliefs as well as available technology, which played a crucial role in shaping how local governments formulated their very own responses to these challenges.

This session examines the administrative challenges that late medieval and early modern cities faced regarding water management (1200-1800) and primarily explores the responses they developed. What governing bodies were established to regulate water management? How were these governing bodies organized? On what knowledge did administrators base their decisions? Was this knowledge exchanged between cities, and if so, in what ways? What specific architectural, infrastructural and landscape projects were implemented to address the challenges of water? How did social, medical and religious beliefs inform the political and social discourse surrounding water management? By bringing together scholars from various disciplines (political history, architectural history, medical history, history of technology…), this session aims to discuss to what extent water management became a topic of knowledge exchange between cities across the globe.

Abstracts can be submitted by 22 October 2025 via the EAUH website: https://www.eauhbarcelona2026.eu/call-for-papers/