Birgit Emich to Speak at History Seminar, Wed October 29

Professor Birgit Emich holds a chair for Early Modern History at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg.  Her talk at Northumbria is the title: 'Informality in formal organisations: Why (and how) early modern state administration worked', Lipman 033, 4.30.
 
In numerous case studies, starting with her monograph in 2001, on Bureaucracy and Nepotism under Paul VI (Bürokratie und Nepotismus unter Paul V. (1605-1621): Studien zur frühneuzeitlichen Mikropolitik in Rom), she has scrutinized aspects of political and administrative history and confessional cultures, returning more than once to the administration and the secretary correspondence of the early modern Papacy and the large Papal state that incorporated at its high point the Italian lands from Rome up the East Coast to Ferrara.

Given the broad interest among scholars in the organisations of governments and how they actually functioned and worked together, and, for that matter, also in the darker sides of court life, such as Papal nepotism, Prof. Emich’s research into questions of “who is involved” and “how did communication flow” will help forge new ways of understanding patterns of political networks of the past.