Tο Σεμινάριο Ιταλικής Ιστορίας και Ιστοριογραφίας (Τμήμα Ιταλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας του Εθνικού και Καποδιστριακού Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών) σας προσκαλεί στη σεμιναριακή διάλεξη του κ. Renard Gluzman, Ιστορικού, Μεταδιδακτορικού Ερευνητή στο Haifa Center for Mediterranean History (HCMH) – University of Haifa, με θέμα: An epidemic of marine wood-boring organisms and its impact on ships and seafaring in the Early Modern Mediterranean.

H διάλεξη θα πραγματοποιηθεί την Τετάρτη 20 Μαΐου 2020 (20:00), στην αγγλική γλώσσα, μέσα από την πλατφόρμα Zoom, https://zoom.us/j/2596027599

Περίληψη

In this lecture we will explore ships as a floating ecosystem of sorts, a Noah’s Ark of mammals carrying an untold quantity of busy microbes, barnacles siphoning and plankton. We will start by taking a microscopic look on their life and natural habitat. Zooming out, we will discuss the characteristics of infested wood and the behind-the-scenes of seafaring.

We will address the practices of hauling out and careening a ship, and the chemical war waged against the teredo shipworm, the costs of construction, the depreciation of the vessel’s value, the scrapping and/or recycling of its timber and equipment, and the prospects of enjoying revenues out of the investment in shipbuilding. Our attention will shift from the single

case to the ever-infested fleet itself. We will discuss governments regularly control, safety inspections, subsidies and loans to galvanize the construction of new vessels, and lastly, the role of the teredo in state formation in pre-modern Europe.

C.V.

Renard Gluzman is a postdoctoral fellow at the Haifa Center for

Mediterranean History (HCMH) in the University of Haifa. His manuscript

entitled Venetian Shipping from the Days of Glory to Decline, 1453–1571

won the prestigious “Ugo Tucci Prize” for original unpublished work on the

theme “The Mediterranean between Medieval and Modern Times”, Istituto

Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, and will be published in  Brill series

in Maritime History. Besides theoretical research, Gluzman sails the

Mediterranean in his boat Bellatrix.

Publications

Venetian Shipping from the Days of Glory to Decline, 1453–1571 (Leiden:

Brill, forthcoming). “What Makes a Ship Venetian? (13th–16th centuries)”,

in Trading Empire: Venetian Rule in the Eastern Mediterranean 1400–1700 –

Festschrift in Honour of Benjamin Arbel, ed. by Georg Christ (Leiden:

Brill, 2020). (with Pagratis Gerassimos), “Tracking Venice’s Maritime

Traffic in the First Age of Globalization: A Geospatial Analysis”, Reti

marittime come fattori dell’integrazione europea, la 50ª Settimana di

Studi, Fondazione F. Datini, Prato (13-17 maggio 2018) (Prato: F. Datini,

2019), pp. 259-277.  “Notes on Venice’s Ship-Breaking Industry and the

Scrap Market in the Sixteenth-Century”, The Journal of European Economic

History, no. 2, September, 2018, pp. 83-95.

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