Quentin Bruneau is Assistant Professor of Politics at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College. His work focuses on two main areas of research. The first is international political economy, particularly the history of global finance, and the second concerns the history and theory of international relations. His forthcoming book, States and the Masters of Capital, reveals a profound transformation in how financiers lending capital to sovereign states have thought about and evaluated their borrowers over the past two centuries.

With the support of GIDEST, Quentin will begin his second major project: a study of courtly ceremonial in early modern Europe. From the sixteenth century all the way up to the late eighteenth century, courtly ceremonial was central to world affairs. Its object was the proper design of events involving princes or their representatives in courtly settings. When poorly conceived, ceremonial events could create diplomatic conflicts as they do now, but because of their immense importance at the time, they could lead to far worse – in some cases resulting in outright military confrontation.

Writings on courtly ceremonial offer an almost unparalleled entry point into fundamental issues about early modern international relations: What kinds of actors did masters of ceremonies think they ought to organize? On what basis were different polities’ representatives positioned in these hierarchical ceremonial events? How did non-European actors fit within these ceremonial schemes? By studying courtly ceremonial, Quentin’s aim is to contribute to painting a new picture of early modern Europe and its relation to the wider world.