CfP: Economic Rationalities



Call for Papers: Economic Rationalities
26-27 January 2014
Aarhus University
Denmark

Regimes of thought and legitimizations of action draw upon systematized authorities of religious, juridical, moral, scientific and increasingly economic reasoning. These authorities interrelate in various ways. They compete to be the prime, societal authority; they supplant each other; they borrow metaphors, concepts, practices; they subvert and change existing languages. To address these interrelations ECORA invites interested scholars to submit paper proposals on the historical study of economic rationality and the struggles for authority between economic reasoning and other claims for knowledge- and practice-authority in Western modernity.

Abstracts must be submitted to one of three parallel streams:
            The Renaissance
          The Enlightenment
American and Western European Capitalism

          We invite scholars with an interest in the history of economic thought to submit a paper proposal. We particularly encourage scholars working with the interrelations between economic, religious and/or scientific reasoning to participate as well as people understanding their work as, or related to, what could called the history of economic thought, intellectual history of capitalism, history of economic ideas, and history of science and science studies.


Submission Guidelines
          Please submit your abstract proposals (max 300 words) as a PDF file to ecora2014@hum.au.dk

          Please indicate which stream your proposal refers to.
          Deadline for paper proposal: September 1st 2013 (feedback on paper proposals September 15 2013).

Organizers
          The conference is organized by the research project ECORA ([
http://ecora.au.dk/) located at the Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University funded by the Velux Foundation.

          Suggested stream topics

          The Renaissance (1400-1750)
          Early Modern Entrepreneurship; Trust and Trade, From credito to gentlemanliness; Techniques and Practices; Financial Philosophies; From Households to Powerhouses; Finances and Statesmanship; Lady Credit; Virt˙ and Money; natural philosophy and economy; the role of mathematics; usura and debt, medicine and money

          The Enlightenment (ca. 1700-1840)
          Political contexts of key economic theories; changing discourses and meanings of money, credit, finance; strategies for changing the role of states in commerce and finance; conceptions of ëfriendsí and ëenemiesí of mankind; Changing patterns of consumption; Theories and arguments on global economic orders; Conceptions of free (or unfree) markets; The valuation of human life in economics; Insurance systems.

          American and Western European Capitalism (ca. 1870-2000)
          Key economic, social and political thinkers; ideas about the market; the economist as public intellectual; economic textbooks; ideas of the corporation; financialization; interest organizations and their role in the production and spread of economic thinking; legitimisation of economic action; changing discourses and meanings of money, credit, finance; neoliberalism; financial crisis; comparative studies.

Please see the conference website for additional information:

____________________________________________________________________
Jakob Bek-Thomsen, MA, PhD
Assistant Professor
Institute of Culture and Society
Philosophy and History of Ideas
Aarhus University
Jens Chr. Skous Vej 7
Building 1465, room 630
DK-8000 Aarhus C
Denmark
Phone: +45 871 62285
Mobile: +45 26179655

Skype ID: jakobbekthomsen