Report June 2013
Felicia Gottmann
This has been a particularly active and stimulating term, with eight different workshops and
conferences in three different countries.
Conferences
Since I have submitted individual reports and/or programmes, presentations or papers on
all of these, I will only give a chronological overview of them here. Details can be found on
the intranet under
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/ghcc/eac/intranet/activity/feliciagottman/
The conference marathon started off with a colloquium in Reading:
22 April 2013 - Academic Cultures Colloquium, University of Reading, 26 April 2013. I did
not give a paper but the programme and poster can be seen online. I got rather involved in
some of the discussions there and apparently as a result Prof. Allan Potofsky (Paris VII)
invited me to speak at their colloquium in Paris (see below).
After this followed:
3-4 May 2013 - Yale University conference on ‘Political Economy and Empire in the Early
Modern World.' Organised by the transatlantic Political Cultures Working Group (Steve
Pincus and Joanne Freeman), Yale University, New Haven, US. Joint paper and
programme are online. I loved this conference.
5 May 2013 Conference on "The Companies: Continuities, Transition, or Disjuncture?"
organised by Emily Erikson and Julia Adams, Yale University, New Haven, US. My
position paper and the programme are online. After the conference I travelled to Boston to
meet up with Anne McCants and to visit the Peabody Essex Museum where Karina
Corrigan gave us a wonderful tour of the museum and the depot.
17 May 2013 - Colloqium, The Turn to Consumption: Perspectives on the Historiography
of Eighteenth-Century Europe', Université Paris-Diderot, LARCA, EA 4214, and University
of Chicago Center in Paris organised by Allan Potofsky and Paul Cheney. Programme,
poster, and my presentation are online. This was another very stimulating and worthwhile
event with very thought-provoking discussions and some very helpful feedback. I'm very
glad I went.
23 May 2013 -Eighteenth-Century Studies: Maritime World Workshop, Beinecke Rare
Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, US. The programme and my presentation are
online. This was an interesting if quite unusual workshop. I'm really curious to see what will
happen to the special issue they are planning as a result of this.
I also attended, on the 29 May 2013, the Indian Textiles Study Day with art historian
Jasleen Kandhari at the Ashmolean Museum. Sheilagh has already sent out her thoughts
and notes on this. I hope we will use our contact with Jasleen to publish something in their
journal. I then briefly went to the Warwick History Graduate Conference on 30 May and
immediately afterwards (31 May - 1 June 2013) attended the East India Company at
Home Mid-Project Conference, London, which once again was a really inspiring event.
Writing
Apart from the presentations for the above conferences I also wrote and submitted my
paper for the French Association of Economic History (AFHE) on the political economy of
the French calico debates, entitled 'Echec de la vertu ou vertu de l’échec ? Le discours
économique de la querelle sur la prohibition des toiles peintes en France (1749-1759)'.
I have also rethought and rewritten my book proposal, having decided that the original
version was overly ambitious and too broad.
Finally, I am about to write two very overdue book reviews which, since they are on the
topic of French Colonial knowledge transfers and French Enlightenment political economy,
should also help me rethink my book project.
Teaching
Apart from marking exams and extended essays, I have done no teaching in the last term,
but have agreed to teach one lecture or seminar each for both the Global Material Culture
MA option and the undergraduate Enlightenment module next year.
Planning ahead
I am intending to spend this summer and early autumn finding and sorting archival
materials as well as reading the remaining secondary materials that I have amassed but
not managed to go through yet, so that hopefully, after the AFHE conference in early
October I can dedicate all my time to writing.