Tag: history of capitalism

CfP Archives of Economic Life

Steph

Archives of Economic Life

A Researching Event for Historians of Capitalism and Corporate Archivists

The Centre for Economic Cultures at the University of Manchester invites submissions for a two-day networking workshop for historians of economic life in the UK, to be held on June 8 and 9, 2023. The workshop will bring together early- and mid-career researchers in the history of capitalism, business, and economic life to discuss research interests and reflect on the history of capitalism in the UK. Scholars will not only engage with each other but will also work with archivists from some of the leading corporate collections in the UK, exploring opportunities for collaboration and research development.

The organizers are keen to identify scholars in the UK pursuing the history of global capitalism and interested in the possibilities that corporate archives might provide in terms of knowledge mobilization and impact agendas. The history of capitalism is understood capaciously – including the history of economic life, business, political economy, consumption, labour, and economic thought – as well as transnationally, and a variety of methodological approaches are welcome. Proceedings will include small-group workshops to discuss shared challenges, presentations of research agendas/works in progress, and panel discussions. The emphasis will be on meeting and discussing rather than formal presentations, but participants should expect to speak about their research agendas and works-in-progress.

Please send an email to the organizer, Dr. Alexia Yates (alexia.yates@manchester.ac.uk) outlining your interest in the workshop, along with a short CV (2 pages) and a 300-word description of a relevant work-in-progress by May 12, 2023. Funding from the AHRC is available to support travel and accommodation expenses.

CfP: Industriousness in the History of Capitalism

Steph

Call for Papers Hybrid/IRL Symposium: 

Working five to nine: Industriousness in the History of Capitalism

7 July 2023, Australian Catholic University

Victoria Parade, Fitzroy (Melbourne). Room TBA. Hybrid Format.

Convenors: Hannah Forsyth and Elizabeth Tandy Shermer

Twentieth century capitalism has relied to a considerable degree on industriousness at work and school. Such industriousness became key to accessing the elite. Yale law scholar Daniel Markovits describes a college application essay in which a student boasted that their dedication to study led them to pee their pants rather than interrupt an intellectual discussion. Such commitment became quite widespread. Musical icon Dolly Parton recently rewrote her iconic song, “9 to 5,” into “5 to 9” for an app commercial, which praised the many striving to get ahead, or just break even, in the Gig Economy. Productivity increases in service sector occupations have arguably driven a great deal of profitability since the late twentieth century. Longer working hours, fewer and shorter vacations, helicopter parenting  and other forms of investment in our own human capital have acted as a bulwark against falling into workforce precarity or losing class status, though it may be destabilized by the ‘Great Resignation’ succeeding COVID lockdowns. This symposium seeks to understand the origins and unfolding of this twentieth century work ethic, considering New Deal and welfare state preoccupations with full employment, the massive increase in years of schooling globally and the expansion of working hours, particularly among university students and in white-collar occupations.

We welcome proposals from history, sociology, education, political economy or other fields that consider industriousness in the twentieth century, whether in the USA, UK, Australia or elsewhere. Priority will be given to papers that may cohere into a published collection.

Please send short abstract proposals to Hannah by 1 May 2023: hannah.forsyth@acu.edu.au

For enquiries, feel free to contact either Hannah hannah.forsyth@acu.edu.au or Ellie eshermer@luc.edu

CfP: Capitalism and Informality

Steph1 Comment

Submission deadline: 15 September 2022

Conference dates: 14–15 April 2023

The Menard Family George Washington Forum (GWF), which has its home at Ohio University, invites paper proposals for a conference and subsequent special journal issue on the capitalism and informality. The conference will be held at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, on 14 and 15 April 2022. Plenary lectures will be delivered by Kellee Tsai (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), Friederike Welter (Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn), and Justin Webb (University of North Carolina at Charlotte).

More than a half-century of developmental discourse has portrayed informality as a signal of economic “backwardness”. From the writings of Max Weber to those of Clifford Geertz, Keith Hart, and Alfred Chandler, social scientific theories have suggested that as economies modernize, hierarchical and rationalized forms of economic organization will displace the “unorganized, unincorporated enterprises” and anomic agents of the informal economy. However, contrary to such predictions, informality remains the global norm. The informal economy continues to comprise at least half of all enterprises, a sizable majority of all jobs, and as much as 20 percent of gross domestic product in developed economies and 60 percent in emerging markets.

A recent generation of scholarship has begun to challenge the idea of the informal economy as a “little people’s alternative” — a static realm of simple, disorganized activity that exists outside of history. Studies have shown that, across different societal contexts, participation in the informal economy is driven by opportunity as well as by necessity, informal organizations can also structured and hierarchical, and informal entrepreneurship can play a powerful role in the reshaping of institutions. Scholars have also highlighted the interdependency of formal and informal economies. Informal enterprises and workers continue to supply critical labor, goods, and services that are used across the formal economy and most are intrinsically linked to formal firms. The informal economy is even facilitating the rise of new industries and new economic forms: artificial intelligence systems depend on “ghost laborers” to code the big data from which AI learns; offshore financial centers rely upon informal networks to arrive at understandings of acceptable practices; and sharing economies operate efficiently because of the services of informal middlemen. The informal thus remains inextricably interwoven with even the most modern elements of economies.

This conference will examine the persistence of informal economies and their relationship with economic transformation. It will explore how informal economies have developed complex organizational structures, have co-evolved in tandem with new industries and modes of production, and have shaped the broader economic and social contexts in which they are embedded.

The conference explicitly aims to bring together a diverse group of scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds who work on a range of societal contexts. We especially welcome contributions from anthropological, sociological, historical, and managerial perspectives. Examples of relevant topics include:

  • The socio-cultural construction of formal/informal boundaries and their evolution over time
  • The structure of organizations and enterprises in the informal economy, both contemporary and historical
  • Processes of informal economic organization
  • Informal innovation (i.e. the novel recombination of labor, capital, and knowledge in the informal economy)
  • Interactions between informal enterprises and the formal economy
  • Informal economies in post-socialist and post-colonial contexts and their relationship to economic transition
  • The role informal organizations play in the rise of new industries and sectors (e.g. digital economy) as well as the functioning of old ones (e.g. finance, real estate, manufacturing)
  • Governance and policymaking related to informal economy

Limited funds will be made available to participants to offset the costs of travel and lodgings.

Expectations

The purpose of the conference is to collect and workshop a series of papers that will potentially contribute to a future special issue. The special issue call will be open and competitive.

To apply, please send an abstract (no more than 500 words) of your prospective paper to the conference organizer, Adam Frost (af.mpp@cbs.dk), and to Robert G. Ingram (ingramr@ohio.edu) by 15 September 2022.

Participants will be expected to produce a full draft of the article to be disseminated to all other participants one month prior to the conference (15 March 2023).

Business History Initiative

Steph

Upcoming Event: “Forms of Capitalism”

The Business History Initiative invites you to a two-day virtual conference, organized by Sophus Reinert, Robert Fredona, and Teresa da Silva Lopes. The conference will take place on Friday, May 6, and Friday, May 13, 2022, from 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM (East Coast US Time). The schedule is listed below.

Over the past two decades scholars in the fields of economics, management, and comparative political theory have addressed and explored the wide range of existing varieties of capitalism. Taking their insights as a launching point, “Forms of Capitalism” seeks to understand the forms that capitalism has taken historically, from those it took as early as the seventeenth century, to those it currently takes and that are likely to persist into the future.

The very word “Capitalism” emerged originally out of languages of both critique and analysis, and capitalisms—past, present, and future—remain protean, elusive, and politically-contested phenomena. This event will encourage thinking with the past about the range and forms of capitalism that are now possible, especially as the need for a more sustainable, equitable, and ethical capitalism continues to become increasingly urgent.  

Please join us on May 6 and May 13. To receive a link to the conference meeting, please RSVP by email to bhi@hbs.edu.

May 6, 12:00 to 4:00 (East Coast US Time) 

Geoff Jones (HBS), Introduction
 
Mattias Fibiger (HBS), Chair 
Rebecca Henderson (HBS), “Reimagining Capitalism” 
Peter Hall (Harvard), “Growth Regimes” 
Quinn Slobodian (Wellesley), Comment 
 
Jeremy Friedman (HBS), Chair 
Mary O’Sullivan (University of Geneva), “The Ruin of Britain’s Manufactures: Capitalism and Colonialism through the Lens of Pitt’s 1785 Irish Proposals” 
D’Maris Coffman (UCL), “The First Crisis Economists: Lescure, Aftalion and the Theorization of Periodic and General Crises in Industrial Capitalism” 
Carolyn Biltoft (Graduate Institute, Geneva), Comment 
 
May 13, 12:00 to 4:00 (East Coast US Time) 

Sophus Reinert (HBS), Introduction 

Marlous van Waijenburg (HBS), Chair 
Sebouh Aslanian (UCLA), “‘Taking Risks Beyond the Bounds of Common Sense’? An Indo-Armenian ‘Bill of Exchange’ from Isfahan, c. 1730, and Trust Relations between Julfan Armenians and Marwari Indians” 
Joel Bakan (British Columbia, Law), “The Corporate Form of Capitalism” 
Francesca Trivellato (IAS), Comment 
 
Charlotte Robertson (HBS), Chair 
Mary Hicks (Chicago), “Captivity’s Commerce: The Theory and Methodology of Slaving and Capitalism” 
Bernard Harcourt (Columbia, Law), “The Kraken, perhaps, but what about the Behemoth?” 
Carl Wennerlind (Barnard), Comment 
 

Second roundtable on “Enchantment in the History of Capitalism”

Steph

Dear colleagues,

Please join us for a second roundtable in the ‘Enchantment in the History of Capitalism’ series on March 25, 15:00 GMT. We will be welcoming Professor Carrie Tirado Bramen and Professor David Morgan for a session on enchantment in the history of science, literature, and the arts.

This is the second of a series of reading-group style workshops, intended to reflect on the meaning of enchantment and its uses in existing scholarship across different disciplines, with a longer-term view to redirect the concept and shed new light on the history of capitalism. 

Please register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/enchantment-in-the-history-of-capitalism-roundtable-2-tickets-243101793007


More information on our roundtables and pre-readings are available on the network website: https://economic-enchantments.net/


We hope to see many of you there!

Anat Rosenberg and Astrid Van den Bossche

Roundtable on Enchantment in the History of Capitalism

Steph

Dear colleagues,

We are a network of scholars who seek to develop enchantment as an organizing theme in historical studies of capitalism. We hope to provide a platform for those interested in the historical role of enchantment as a tool, structure, or foundation for the organization and the development of modern markets, economic institutions, and economic relationships.

The first meeting of the network will take place on February 24, at 14:30 GMT on Zoom. It will be led by two expert speakers on magic and religion, Professor Owen Davies and Professor Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm. 

This is the first of a series of reading-group style workshops, intended to reflect on the meaning of enchantment and its uses in existing scholarship across different disciplines, with a longer-term view to redirect the concept and shed new light on the history of capitalism. 

More information on the first and future meetings, assigned pre-readings, as well as registration to the meeting and to our mailing list, are available on the network website: https://economic-enchantments.net/

We hope that many of you will join us on this intellectual journey!

Anat Rosenberg and Astrid Van den Bossche

—-
Dr Astrid Van den Bossche
Lecturer in Digital Marketing and Communications
Department of Digital Humanities 
King’s College London | Strand Campus | WC2R 2LS

Symposium on Radical Business

Steph

Radical Business?

SYMPOSIUM, 28 June 2019

Radical Business? Business and the Contest over Social Norms

Lecture Theatre, Weston Library
9 am to 4:30 pm

Conveners: David Chan Smith and Rowena Olegario

This one-day symposium at the Weston Library brings together an interdisciplinary group of speakers to offer insights into how business has acted as a radical force to upset and replace social norms over time. Whether seeking to normalize new products and services, such as autonomous vehicles, or reacting to environmental or safety concerns, business is engaged in a constant negotiation with larger cultural codes. Speakers will discuss the consequences of this contest over social norms, including ethical as well as strategic implications. By bringing together researchers from across disciplines, the symposium will also explore common conceptual ground to understand the significance of this problem for the history of capitalism and management.

 

All are welcome to attend, but please RSVP.

David Smith is Associate Professor, Department of History, Wilfrid Laurier University, and is the Royal Bank of Canada-Bodleian Visiting Fellow at the Bodleian Libraries during Trinity Term 2019.

Presented in association with the Oxford Centre for Global History, Global History of Capitalism project, Faculty of History, University of Oxford

Confirmed speakers:

Aled Davies, University of Oxford
Stephanie Decker, Aston University
Neil Forbes, Coventry University
James Hollis, University of Oxford
Mary Johnstone-Louise, University of Oxford
Alan Morrison, University of Oxford
Anne Murphy, University of Hertfordshire
Adam Nix, De Montfort University
Will Pettigrew, University of Lancaster
David Chan Smith, Wilfrid Laurier University
Heidi Tworek, University of British Columbia
Michael Weatherburn, Imperial College London
Lola Wilhelm, University of Oxford

GHC logo

Conference: Hidden Capitalism @ Hagley

Steph

The program  (https://www.hagley.org/research/conferences) for the conference, Hidden Capitalism: Beyond, Below, and Outside the Visible Market is now available. This one-day conference will take place November 10, 2017 at the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware.

The conference’s twelve papers seek to expand understandings of capitalism by exploring the substantial economic activity that occurs at the margins and in the concealed corners of the formal economy. Uncovering these forgotten or obscured activities can focus new attention on our understanding of how capitalism works both with formal market institutions and at the same time incorporates informal, less visible institutional apparatus.  The papers especially highlight the mutual dependency of the visible and invisible features of capitalism and how the moralities of each both converge and diverge.

The papers are transnational in scope, addressing episodes in France, the United States, Communist China, and India, as well as nationally-ambiguous cases of free-trade zones and offshore banking havens. They trace episodes involving apparel, scrap metal, liquor, lumber, and cotton, as well as regulatory conflicts over food and household commodities, knock-off clothing designs, businesses advertising “immoral” services, and enterprises operated by Hispanics and African Americans. All cases engage, in one way or another, with the boundaries of legality and the relationship between the official marketplace and the spaces that lie outside.

This conference was initiated by Lisa Jacobson (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Ken Lipartito (Florida International University), who were joined on the program committee by Roger Horowitz and Amrys Williams from the Hagley Library and Wendy Woloson from Rutgers University – Camden. The conference runs from 8:30-5:30 and will meet in the Copeland Room of Hagley’s library building.

Advance registration is free but required.  Lunch is available onsite for advance payment of $15.00.  A link to all of the conference papers will be available to those who have registered.  To sign up to attend the conference, please contact Carol Lockman, clockman@Hagley.org  or 302-658-2400, x243.

 

Carol Ressler Lockman

Manager, Hagley Center

PO Box 3630

Wilmington DE  19807

clockman@hagley.org

 

 

 

CfP: BHC 2018 – Money, Finance and Capital

Steph

Money, Finance, and Capital

2018 Business History Conference Annual Meeting

Baltimore, Maryland, April 5 – April 7, 2018

Money, Finance, and Capital is the theme of the 2018 Business History Conference meeting. Historians who want to write compelling histories of capitalism must grapple with the manifold roles that money, finance, and capital have played in political, economic, social and cultural dynamics. Yet, for many years, the abstruse and elusive character of these phenomena encouraged many historians of economic life to maintain a safe distance from them. Of course, there have always been some historians willing to figure out where money, finance, and capital fit into broader histories of our societies. Still, much of what we know about currency and credit, investment and profit, bonds and futures results from highly specialised research whose technical quality reinforces the enigmatic character of these subjects.

Historians are not alone in encountering difficulties in making sense of money, finance, and capital. In 1931, for example, when distinguished British economist, John Maynard Keynes, gave a radio address on the “slump”, he emphasised that “the behaviour of the financial system and the banking system is capable of suddenly going off the rails, so to speak, and interfering with everyone’s prosperity for obscure and complicated reasons.” Keynes pointed out that it was unreasonable to expect the ”man in the street” to understand such reasons. Yet, he also emphasised that professed experts tended ”to talk much greater rubbish than an ordinary man” largely because ”the science of economics, of banking, of finance is in a backward state.” More recently, Alan Greenspan infamously admitted his “shocked disbelief” at the onset of the recent crisis and former governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, portrayed money and finance as “alchemy”. Technical expertise in these domains, it seems, is not necessarily a route to greater understanding.

Fortunately, money, finance, and capital have moved to the forefront in many historiographies in recent years. Whether it is the business of slave plantations and trade, of consumer credit and railroading, of government finance, securities markets and international banking, the history of business offers exciting insights on these important and perplexing themes. That was already apparent in some of the pioneering research that historians carried out on money, finance, and capital and it has become clearer still with the recent new wave of research by political, cultural, social, literary and economic historians.

The theme of the 2018 BHC conference is designed to encourage contributions from a variety of approaches to historical research on the themes of money, finance, and capital, covering a broad range of periods and geographies. The program committee of David Sicilia (chair), Christy Ford Chapin, Per Hansen, Naomi Lamoreaux, Rory Miller, Julia Ott, and Mary O’Sullivan (BHC president) invites papers addressing, inter alia, the following questions:

  • How have money, finance, and capital bound different people and places together over time in relationships of mutual advantage, dependence or exploitation?
  • How much change do we observe in concepts such as currency, credit, and capital and their associated practices between more distant and recent pasts?
  • What is the role of money, finance, and capital in the emergence and persistence of varieties of capitalism around the world?
  • What historical variations do we observe among businesses in their conception and measurement of capital, its control, investment and utilisation, as well as in the risks and rewards associated with it?
  • Without neglecting the post-World War II trend towards “financialization”, what might we say about the changing relationship between finance and capital over the very long run?
  • What has been the role of money, finance, and capital in the origins and diffusion of international crises in history?
  • What types of commentators have generated powerful ideas about money, finance, and capital? How have economic commentators, historians, business leaders, journalists and other writers helped to construct and contest these ideas?
  • Do the historical roles of money, finance, and capital allow us to demarcate capitalism as a distinctive type of social organisation or does it suggest, as Deirdre McCloskey claims, that the term “capitalism” is a scientific mistake?

While we encourage proposals to take up this theme, papers addressing all other topics will receive equal consideration by the program committee in accordance with BHC policy. The program committee will consider both individual papers and entire panels. Individual paper proposals should include a one-page (300 word) abstract and one-page curriculum vitae (CV). Panel proposals should include a cover letter stating the rationale for the panel and the name of its contact person; one-page (300 word) abstract and author’s CV for each paper; and a list of preferred panel chairs and commentators with contact information. To submit a proposal go to http://thebhc.org/2018meeting and click on the link Submit a Paper/Panel Proposal.

All sessions take place at the Embassy Suites Baltimore Inner Harbor. Rooms (all suites) are $159/night and include a full breakfast.

The K. Austin Kerr Prize will be awarded for the best first paper delivered by a new scholar at the annual meeting.  A “new scholar” is defined as a doctoral candidate or a Ph. D. whose degree is less than three years old. You must nominate your paper for this prize on the proposal submission page where indicated. Please check the appropriate box if your proposal qualifies for inclusion in the Kerr Prize competition.

The deadline for receipt of all proposals is 2 October 2017. Acceptance letters will be sent by 31 December 2017. Everyone appearing on the program must register for the meeting. Graduate students and recent PhDs (within 3 years of receipt of degree) whose papers are accepted for the meeting may apply for funds to partially defray their travel costs; information will be sent out once the program has been set.

The BHC awards the Herman E. Krooss Prize for the best dissertation in business history by a recent Ph.D. in history, economics, business administration, the history of science and technology, sociology, law, communications, and related fields. To be eligible, dissertations must be completed in the three calendar years immediately prior to the 2018 annual meeting, and may only be submitted once for the Krooss prize. After the Krooss committee has reviewed the proposals, it will ask semi-finalists to submit copies of their dissertations. Finalists will present summaries of their dissertations at a plenary session of the 2018 BHC annual meeting and will receive a partial subsidy of their travel costs to the meeting. Proposals accepted for the Krooss Prize are not eligible for the Kerr Prize. If you wish to apply for this prize please send a cover letter indicating you are applying for the Krooss prize along with a one-page CV and one-page (300 word) dissertation abstract via email to BHC@Hagley.org. The deadline for proposals for the Krooss prize is 2 October 2017.

The BHC Doctoral Colloquium in Business History will be held in conjunction with the BHC annual meeting. This prestigious workshop, funded by Cambridge University Press, will take place in Baltimore Wednesday April 4 and Thursday April 5. Typically limited to ten students, the colloquium is open to early stage doctoral candidates pursuing dissertation research within the broad field of business history, from any relevant discipline. Topics (see link for past examples) may range from the early modern era to the present, and explore societies across the globe.  Participants work intensively with a distinguished group of BHC-affiliated scholars (including at least two BHC officers), discussing dissertation proposals, relevant literatures and research strategies, and career trajectories.  Applications are due by 15 November 2017 via email to BHC@Hagley.org should include: a statement of interest; CV; preliminary or final dissertation prospectus (10-15 pages); and a letter of support from your dissertation supervisor (or prospective supervisor). Questions about the colloquium should be sent to its director, Edward Balleisen, eballeis@duke.edu. All participants receive a stipend that partially defrays travel costs to the annual meeting.  Applicants will receive notification of the selection committee’s decisions by 20 December 2017.

General questions regarding the BHC’s 2018 annual meeting may be sent to Secretary-Treasurer Roger Horowitz, rh@udel.edu.

 

Job: Oxford University, Global history of capitalism

Steph

Career Development Fellow – Global History of Capitalism

University of Oxford – Faculty of History

The Global History of Capitalism project is seeking a dedicated Career Development Fellow to join their team to conduct rigorous academic research and to inform debates on the history of capitalism.

The successful applicant will have an active research interest in the global history of capitalism and be able to work individually and collaboratively with researchers across disciplines. You will conduct relevant archival research as well as field-based research where relevant. You will manage your own academic research and administrative duties, contribute ideas for new projects and collaborate in the presentation of publications. You will also provide teaching relief to one of the Co-Directors and co-design a new undergraduate course in business history.

You will hold a relevant doctorate (or show evidence that a doctorate is imminent) and have an excellent knowledge of the languages relating to your specialism. You will be able to demonstrate a strong research record and excellent communication skills along with the ability to teach. An ability to work independently as well as collaboratively within a team is essential.

The post is full-time and fixed term for 3 years; the start date is negotiable but must be no later than January 2018.

Applicants are required to submit a research proposal as part of their application.

Applications must be made online. To apply for this role and for further details, including the job description and selection criteria, please click on the link below.

The deadline for applications is 12.00 noon on 13 September 2017.

Applications are particularly welcome from women and black and minority ethnic candidates who are under-represented in research posts in Oxford.

https://www.recruit.ox.ac.uk/pls/hrisliverecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_id=130104