Report for meeting with Maxine December 2012
I last reported on my work on the 19th of June 2012. Since then I have officially worked on my
Warwick project up until the 8th of August. Between 8th of August and 31 of December I am officially
working on my Swedish project. Since in reality I am sharing my time between the two project I have
listed work I have done on both projects below (Swedish stuff in grey).
Teaching
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Co-taught/sat in on Global History MA, session on Cosmopolitanism with Anne Gerritsen,
Oct. 2013
Monash- Warwick Collaboration, Teaching Global History Project, 10th December 2012,
Signed up for Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PCAP).
This involves writing two papers, one of which I might do on teaching global history. I am
quite keen to gain more teaching experiences, as this will be advantageous when applying
for jobs in Sweden, hence also PCAP course and sitting in on Anna’s seminar.
Forthcoming teaching
Next to teaching my share of the World of Consumption in the Spring term I am also signed up to do
a lecture for the 1st year Enlightenment module, first week of term II, 2012/2013.
Research presentations (conference, workshops, seminars)
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27-29 Sept 2012: Presentation of paper “Colours in abundance and Bundles” at the
Innovation before the Modern. Cloth and Clothing in the Earl Modern World, Nordiska
Museet, Stockholm
12 Oct 2012: “Building Central Collections – Linnaean Students at Work in London,
Workshop: A Global History of Linnaean Science, 1750–1820, Center for History of Science,
Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, Stockholm.
29th Nov 2012: “Trading and Consuming: East India Companies and Europe” (With Maxine
Berg), Comparative Histories of Asia Seminar, IHR, London
Forthcoming presentations
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11-13 Jan 2013: The European market for teas and the Swedish East India Company, c. 17301760 Hanna Hodacs & Leos Müller, Goods from the East Conference, Venice,
Abstract:
The European trade in tea is one of the most dynamic components of the 18th-century global
trade. In the course of the 18th century tea revolutionized the drinking habits of Europeans,
particular in Britain and the Dutch Republic). Imports of tea increased many times and the
prices dropped; already by the mid-century tea had become an everyday beverage for many
Dutch and British subjects, including the poor. All the tea consumed in 18th-century Europe
was imported from China by a limited number of competing suppliers – chartered
companies – and one of the most important actors was the Swedish East India Company.
What distinguished among others the Swedish company was that most of the tea it brought
to Gothenburg was re-exported. In this paper we analyses this trade focusing on volumes,
assortments, qualities, prices and purchasers of this tea. The aim is to illuminate the role of
the Swedish tea on the European market, and aspects to do with how quantities and
qualities were negotiating with long distance producers as well as long distance consumers.
In the paper we will draw on two types of sources, firstly a near unique series of sales
catalogues from the Company auctions in Gothenburg, covering a series of years stretching
between 1733 and 1759, secondly the correspondence of a group of merchants, all involved
in the whole sale tea trade in Sweden but operating from Hamburg, Amsterdam, Rotterdam,
London and Gothenburg.
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22 Feb 2013, RCA London: “Eight Shades of Blue – 18th Century Chinese Silk on the European
market”, Colour Symposium at the RCA (invitation)
Abstract: Chinese silk textiles imported to Europe in the 18th century came in a wide variety
of colours. Silk pieces could be Sky Blue, Dark Blue, Middle Blue, Light Blue, Mazarine Blue,
Milan Blue, Mourant Blue, or Turquin Blue just to mention one set of shades. Different
qualities of silk, such as Damask or Satin, could arrive in more than twenty different colours.
This variation reflects the fact that silk is a fibre which absorbs dyes like maybe no other. The
variation of colours and how assortments changed over time do however also offer insights
into the role of Chinese silk in Europe. In this paper I am going to discuss the how we can use
colours to illuminate markets and fashions in 18th century Europe.
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22-28 July 2013, "Understanding tea from China in 18th century Europe", Panel with
Alexandra Cook, Hong Kong, Betina Dietz, Hong Kong, & Hjalmar Fors, Uppsala, ‘Putting
Chinese natural knowledge to work in the long eighteenth century’, 24th International
Congress History of Science, Technology and Medicine.
Abstract: What can tea tell us about how knowledge of the natural world moved between
China and Europe in the 18th century? Two contradictory stories seem to exist. One is about
naturalists failing to orchestrate planned transfers of the tea bush. This species was only
successfully re-located in the early 19th century (and initially only within Asia), in spite of
multiple attempts to bring seeds and seedlings to Europe and the Atlantic world.
Meanwhile, however, there is another story about the exponential growth in knowledge
about different varieties and qualities of tea as a consumer good in Europe, in response to
the growing imports of Chinese tea by the European East India Companies. In my paper I will
analyse the overlapping stories of how knowledge about the tea plants, its cultivation and
the different qualities of the finished product moved between Asia and Europe in the 18th
century.
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5-7 Sept 2013: “Knowledge Generation, Education and Careers – the Role of Travelling in
Linnaean Natural History”, Symposium, "Travel, Agency, and the Circulation of Knowledge",
Rostock (invited by Gesa Mackenthun)
Abstract: Carolus Linnaeus’ (1707-1778) taxonomic work was central to the modernisation of
natural history in the eighteenth century. His most significant claim to fame was the
invention of the binominal nomenclature. Launched internationally in 1753 with the
publication of Species Plantarum, Linnaeus’ global flora, it soon became a standard way for
naming species. Following the growing dominance of Europe globally Linnaean taxonomy
became a tool for travellers exploring and writing about the none European world. We are
familiar with many aspects of this history. Told like above, underlining the growing power of
Europe as the backdrop for understanding how Linnaean taxonomy became a standard,
many of the original intentions and thoughts regarding the role of travelling and knowledge
generation is lost. In this paper I will point at some of these, focusing particularly on the role
of local informants and local knowledge within a Swedish context, and travelling as a form of
education, creating embodied forms of knowledge, with which help junior naturalists could
be promoted. I will also argue that a focus on locally generated knowledge, education, and
promotion will help us understand the application of Linnaean taxonomy globally, in the late
eighteenth century and onwards. The paper is based on a reading of Linnaeus’ own travel
writing, and as well as on some of his texts on travelling and education. I will also draw on a
selection travel accounts produced by Linnaeus’ students.
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Oct 2013: Learning collection building, at Re:production of knowledge, Symposium: Dept.
for History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University
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Spring 2014: Second workshop on Global Linnaean Science, Florence (with Stephane Van
Damme)
Other possible plans re. research presentation
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The Eighteenth Century in Practice. Nordic Conference for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Lysebu
Conference Center in Oslo, Wednesday 28 to Saturday 31 August 2013. Panel with Isabel
Charmantier
SIAS Summer Institutes 2013/2014, Cultural Encounters: Global Perspectives and Local
Exchanges, 1750-1940, July 29 to August 9, 2013, Berlin, Germany, organized by the
Wissenschaftskolleg, August 3 to 16, 2014, National Humanities Center, Research Triangle
Park, North Carolina, USA
Archive work
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19 to 24 Sep 2012, visited Landsarkivet (county archive) in Gothenburg, two collections
containing material relating to the Swedish supercargoes and directors of the Swedish East
India Company (Tham and Alstromer)
11 Oct, visited Stockholm Stadsarkiv (City Archive) to look at material relating to Swedish
East India Company
Forthcoming archive visits
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Spring (May) 2013 Copenhagen, see below
Plan for how to proceed:
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Write sample chapter and finish book proposal (end of January 2013…)
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Identify interesting years to compare silk and tea trade in Copenhagen and Gothenburg
drawing on the Swedish material, go to Copenhagen and look at material relating to these
years.
Analyse a selection of purchasers at the Danish and Swedish sales, identify some more letter
collections with correspondence from these purchasers. Next to tea and silk purchasers also
look closer at purchasers of goods that needed further refinement, mother of pearl, rattan,
tutanego.
Want to think more about goods that was not re-exported and why…
Other things:
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Invitation of Deidree Coleman as an Institute of Advanced Studies Fellow, Jan or Feb 2014.
Sales catalogues collection online and Sheilagh Holmes’ excel sheet on a selection of Poises
Damask sales
Future collaboration with Ulf Andersson, head of Landsarkivet Gothenburg, relating to sales
catalogues, and maybe getting access to Sahlgren’s collections, privately owned by member
of Swedish Royal Family (Family Silfverschiöld)
Reviewed article for Journal of World History
Two Reviews:
o Thomas Ihre, Abraham Bäck: mannen som reformerade den svenska
sjukvården (Stockholm: Bokförlaget Atlantis 2012). 228 s., for Historisk
Tidskrift, Sweden,
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Kristian H. Nielsen, Michael Harbsmeier & Christopher Ries, ed., Scientists and
Scholars in the Field. Studies in the History of Fieldwork and Expeditions, Aarhus:
Aarhus University Press, 2012. 476 s. ISBN 978 87 7124 014 6., For Lychnos, Sweden