ARCHITECTURAL MASQUE · Performing Spaces: Architecture, Spatiality, and Politics in European Ceremonial Cultures, circa 1550-1700

Performing Spaces: Architecture, Spatiality, and Politics in European Ceremonial Cultures, circa 1550-1700

Project context and objectives 'Performing spaces' was designed to move away from the Anglo-centric studies of one of the main forms of court culture, the masque, towards a broader, more contextualised and nuanced understanding of a wider pan-European rhetoric of court entertainment that informed the masque. European court culture was not simply local; it was comparative and competitive, with members of aristocratic dynasties measuring themselves against enemies, neighbours and allies. The project concentrated on architectural forms in court entertainments (arches, temples, etc.) often because these were associated with new aesthetics, such as classicism, and also because these were frequently recycled or exchanged across language barriers. We coined a term 'architexturalism' to suggest the ways in which these items circulated but also how, as often as not, plans and images were as efficacious as executed and completed projects. The theoretical framework was explored by looking at a number of case studies, including Caroline Court entertainments from England (1625-1642) and parallel occasions in the German princely states. The project aimed at two main outcomes: - the dissemination of this idea to the academic and wider intellectual communities across Europe; - the professional development of the fellow to provide the skills and knowledge for undertaking more European research. Work performed The main focus was on academic outputs (a monograph, articles, conference papers) as well as researcher training (language skills, specialist knowledge of architecture and art history, advanced skills such as palaeography, alongside more generic professional skills). Extended periods of archival research provided much of the project materials. Main results The main output, a monograph of 175 000 words entitled 'Performing spaces', was proposed to and then contracted with Palgrave Macmillan (distribution in Europe and the United States of America). Publication is expected in 2013. A further article was published in a leading peer-reviewed journal 'The Seventeenth Century'. As a result of this work, the fellow is one of a group of young scholars asked to edit a state-of-the-art volume on Caroline literature for the Modern Humanities Research Association (in 'The Yearbook of English Studies', to appear in 2014). The research training was also successful and the fellow is now the researcher on a project on early modern playing spaces, which is funded by the United Kingdom's Arts and Humanities Research Council and based at the Victoria and Albert Museum (London). He made a number of other applications for lecturing jobs and was shortlisted on each occasion; he also applied for a Marie Curie career integration grant and reached the last round of applicants, although it was not ultimately funded.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union