Report Felicia Gottmann Summer Term 2012
Research
I had very fruitful trips to both Paris and Aix over the Easter break and spent some time at the
beginning of this term sorting, transcribing and classing the materials I found.
Since then I focussed my reading on what will be the first chapter of the monograph, on the
importation, consumption, distribution, and smuggling of Asian textiles in France (for details see the
book proposal). I believe I have now identified most of the relevant literature and hope to start
writing the chapter this summer.
I have also started to plan my reading for the subsequent chapter and knowledge and Asian textiles.
I have identified some key texts and sources and hope to focus on that as soon as I have finished the
first chapter this summer
Publications and Presentations
I have used some of the materials I found in Aix and in Paris for the presentation in Leiden, which
helped me to structure my thoughts about the first chapter.
I have revised my survey article and hope to send it out for publication as soon as I have
incorporated further changes.
I am writing a book proposal at the moment which ought to be ready for circulation to the team
before the trip to Swaledale.
Over the summer I will refine the proposal in accordance with feedback. I also plan to write a first
draft of the first chapter of the monograph as well as a review of J. McClellan III, F. Regourd, The
Colonial Machine: French Science and Overseas Expansion in the Old Regime for the Journal for
Eighteenth-Century Studies which is due this autumn.
Teaching
I have only had very little direct contact with students this term. We jointly held two revision
seminars and I met and emailed with students to discuss their long essay titles and plans.
I have marked long essays for both our course and for Galleons and Caravans and will equally be
marking exam scripts for those two modules later this term.
We need to do quite a bit of planning for the course next year as we have changed the course
structure to weekly one-hour seminars and need to adapt the course structure accordingly. We
should have a meeting to plan all this as soon as Hanna has returned from Sweden.
Apart from our own module, I am involved in the new Enlightenment module that Mark Knights is
organising and I will be giving a lecture for this next term.
Travel
I would like to go to the conference on consumption and fashion in York on 23 June, as it starts early
in the morning I would need to arrive the day before and stay overnight, but as I could then stay on
in Newcastle I would only need a single journey.
In France I would like to go to Nantes, where I could find several documents on the sales held in
Nantes from 1719 to 1733. I would also like to go to Lyon, where there seems to be a whole host of
documents on textiles and the smuggling of these as well as documents on the Lyon textile
producers’ complaints against Company imports. In Roubaix, where part of the National Archives are
held, are letters and documents by merchants from Lorient who seem to have been involved in
Company trade. Most importantly perhaps I would like to go to Mulhouse, to the Musée de
l’impression sur Etoffes. I hope to be able to set up meetings there which could be of huge help in
my research. All of these are in different regions of France, but I hope to combine them into a single
trip nevertheless.
I would also like to go to India to find out more about the places I will be writing about. I would first
of all like to go to Pondicherry, to visit the local museum and the Anglo-French textile mills, and most
importantly to get in touch with the French Institute in Pondicherry and ideally meet Jean Deloche. I
would then travel up via Calcutta and the Indian Museum to Chandernagore, the former French seat
in Bengal. It houses the French Institute and Museum, which has an important eighteenth-century
collection, as well as a library, and associate staff whom I would like to meet. I would also like to try
to get in touch with the History department in Calcutta who have several members of staff working
on seventeenth and eighteenth-century India. I think this would be a great opportunity to present
our project and for me to develop links to Indian scholars. With sufficient time and money I would
like to finish the trip in Surat, the French headquarters in India before Pondicherry, which has many
traces of the European presence as well as the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Museum in the City’s
Science Park.
I would, however, not want to travel on my own. Hanna has expressed interest in coming and I
would otherwise ask Dave to accompany me, should he have the time to do so.
Other
This does not have to be connected to travelling as such, but I think it might be a good idea to reestablish contact with Prof. Seema Alavi of Delhi University, whom I met in Belfast and who works
both on late Mughal social, political, and economic history and the Companies’ presence in India. I
think she would be a valuable contact for our project. Her university website is not very helpful, but
for a slightly out of date one, see http://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/people/seema-alavi