Felicia Gottmann ERC project meeting 9 March 2011
Planned conference attendances and research trips
5-6 May, Belfast: Symposium on eighteenth-century Europe and India
 Paper: ‘Voltaire’s Fragments sur l’Inde and the problematic nature of Indian-European
exchange in the later eighteenth century’
 All expenses paid by Belfast
 Papers will be published in an edited collection in SVEC
May, Paris and Lorient: Archival Research (2 weeks)
 Archives nationales, Paris:
Fonds des Colonies (C1: China Trade, C2 : Indian Trade and India)
 Bibliothèque nationale, Paris:
Documents on Porcelain; Private and General Correspondences (NAF) ; Raynal Papers
relating to commerce (Fr. 6431); General papers on Commerce and on the Company and
its deliberations (Fr.7799, 8971, 8973, 8978)
 Archives du Port de Lorient:
Fonds de la Compagnie des Indes (1P 305 : Company deliberations 1723-86; 1P 27-39 &
262 : Sales 1758-71 & 1749-72)
 Possibly also at some point (though perhaps not during the same trip) : Nantes, Archives
Municipales :
Auction sales 1719-33 (HH 219-226: nature and quantitiy of products)
 I can get free accommodation with friends in Paris, but I would need accommodation in
Lorient as well as travel.
 This would be a kind of reconnaissance mission. I will need to go back in due course,
once I have located where relevant and interesting materials might be. Until then it
would be difficult to give exact details of further archive trips, but those will be
necessary.
Lorient Conference 23-24 June
 Just attendance, no paper.
 Will need travel and accommodation.
13. International Congress for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Graz, Austria, 25-29 July
 I will be giving a paper for the session CS019 ‘India, the Indian Ocean, and Europe’.
 I have applied for a grant from the Conference organisers but have not heard back from
them yet. If it doesn’t work I could apply to Robert’s fund, to pay towards the
conference fee, accommodation and travel.
Report on project work
[Never having written a report like this before, I’ve decided to be very structured and Germanic
about this. You’re allowed to laugh, I had to grin myself]
Topic: Reading up on Global History (Sept-Nov 2010)
Reading Ken Pomeranz, John Darwin, David Landes, Maxine Berg, Jan de Vries, Giraldez, Kris
Lane, et al.
Outcome: I now feel I know something about Global History
Topic: East India Companies
General reading: Haudrère, Morineau, Favier, Perry,
French: Haudrère, Morineau, Manning, Wellington
Outcome: French East India Company presentation (January 2011); possibly a textbook outlining
and comparing the different Companies
Further Action: Archival Research.
Topic: The Porcelain Trade
Sources: Haudrère, Wellington, Dermigny, Tournier
Outcome: Potentially a co-authored article (so far an internal working paper and some frustrating
comparative statistics)
Further Action: Need for further research in French Archives.
Topic: French political Economy & the Company
Secondary sources: Sonenscher, Shovlin, Clark, Cheney, McCabe
Primary texts: Montesquieu, Gournay Circle, Physiocrats, Voltaire, Raynal (see separate
document)
Outcome: Conference paper (Graz and Belfast) to be published as part of an edited collection in
SVEC; probably a review of the new Raynal Edition published in French Studies.
Further Action: I need to sit down to study the primary texts in question and actually write the
article and the review, too
Topic: International political Economy
Sources: Hont, Pincus, Cheney, McCabe
Outcome: One-day workshop with Steve Pincus et al; established contacts with possibility of future
exchange and cooperation
Topic: Material Culture and the East India Trade
Read up on this, overlapping with the above. Dermigny and McCabe are particularly
interesting here. Made contact with the Lorient Museum. The Lorient Conference should
prove interesting in this context.
Outcome: Conference in Oxford July