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CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

Conference topic: Environmental Anomalies & Political Legitimacy in Global Eurasia, 12th–14th century,

Location: Naples, Italy, at the University of Naples "L’Orientale."

Dates: 10-11 November 2025

Deadline for submission: May 30th

Starting with the elaboration of the “Celestial Mandate” (tianming) theory in the 11th century BC, the correlation between environmental calamities and political legitimacy became a central tenet in the Chinese monarchical (and later imperial) ideology. With the Emperor embodying the connection between Heaven, Man and Earth, any anomaly in the natural world was interpreted as the symptom of an ethical (and therefore inherently political) anomaly. The importance of heavenly omina as an empirical way of evaluating the personal virtue of a ruler and his ability to take care of his subjects – and more broadly his authority as the Son of Heaven - is clearly demonstrated by the existence of specific sections in the official histories complied by every dynasty ruling over the Chinese territory across the centuries.

The 2-day conference, hosted by the University of Naples “L’Orientale” as part of a Research Project funded by the Italian Ministry of University, intends to insert this pivotal feature of Chinese political philosophy into a wider, Eurasian perspective, focusing on the 12th-14th centuries - an era marked by the Mongol conquests and by an unprecedent degree of “continental entanglements” in terms of economic, human, and cultural transfers.

The conference invites proposals for individual papers investigating, analyzing and comparing theoretical speculations, historiographical accounts, or literary narratives in which abnormal phenomena related to the meteorological, natural or animal worlds are observed in connection to theories of political (and predominantly monarchic) legitimacy.

The organizers aim to bring together historians and scholars in the fields of cultural and historical studies (broadly intended), working on different source materials (chronicles, philosophical treatises, religious texts, fiction and poetry) related to 12th-14th century Eurasia (including China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, India, Central Asia and Persia, the Islamic world, Russia, Byzantium and Europe).

By detecting similarities, differences, and most importantly possible mutual influences in the interpretation of environmental and astronomical anomalies as a way of “reading” or “anticipating” the instability of political orders, the event wishes to contribute to a “global intellectual discussion” on the different human ways of coping with calamities as disruptions of the natural and socio-political systems.

Paper proposal (of no more than 300 words) should be sent, together with a short biography, to dguida@unior.it and fbrusadelli@unior.itno later than May 30th.

Acceptance notice will be given no later than June 30th.

Selected papers will be included in a collective volume to be published in 2026 with a major academic press.