IMC 2025: Sessions

This round table discussion belongs to the Economies of Spaces series (I-III) and will weave together the three sessions that have preceded it and explore potential future paths that (economic) history will probably take. As a pillar of feudalism, land ownership and landed property have been a focus of/for medieval research for a long time. To this day, they are strongly associated with rural economies and manorialism. The economy of landed property also fuelled the idea of medieval societies as largely static, both socially and economically - a 'counter-world' to the dynamics of modern societies and especially of modern capitalism! This round table discussion plans to discuss how different research perspectives can contribute to integrating the economy of urban spaces into a more encompassing analytical framework, bringing together case studies, digitally driven methods, and critical reflection about established historiographies of urban history and narratives on the genesis of capitalism.

Participants include Martha C. Howell (Department of History, Columbia University), Thomas Ertl (Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin), Caroline Goodson (Faculty of History, University of Cambridge / American Academy in Rome), Tobias Hodel (Walter Benjamin Kolleg / Digital Humanities, Universität Bern)