CURR

The CURR project (Cultures of Revolts and Revolutions) is aligned with the latest research in social and human sciences about political cultures. The purpose of the project is to analyse the use of cultural productions – defined as any dissenting discourse getting media attention through writing, orality or iconography – and their means of communication and spreading in the course of revolts and revolutions. The study focuses on collective political uprisings that breach standards and established rules in early modern Europe throughout the process of construction of the Modern State, from the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Enlightenment. The covered period goes until 1799 in order to include the field of memory and the reuse of earlier uprisings in the context of the French Revolution in Europe. Six themes related to cultural productions and revolts are developed within the CURR project: words and gestures; iconography; propaganda, communication and spreading; public space and revolt; how to write revolts; memory and revolts. The aims of the project are to better understand how political norms can be collectively rejected in pre-industrial European societies, to analyse these phenomena through the confrontation between a wide range of sources and thus to improve the historical knowledge concerning cultural expressions in a context of revolts and revolutions. The CURR project is led by three French research centres (two UMR and one EA). 15 permanent French researchers, and 10 European researchers from 7 different countries are involved in it. The purpose is to strengthen and expand an international network working on the cultures of early modern revolts and revolutions while combining multidisciplinary approaches and methodologies according to various geographical experiences and different scales of analysis. The project is based on preliminary research started two years ago and materialised by several workshops, conferences and international seminars that allowed to test the first hypotheses, to gather a network of international experts and to clearly define the scientific objectives of the project now submitted to the ANR. The CURR project will lead to numerous and various scientific productions (seminars and conferences, published articles and books, participation to online journals, exhibitions and museum catalogue, website, educational productions) in French and in several other languages. These productions will help to renew, at an international level, the historical knowledge related to a political and cultural understanding of revolts and revolutions in early modern Europe.