Call for papers : Products from Overseas in Europe: Circulation, Transformation and Consumption (16th-18th centuries)
Type: Call for Papers
Date: March 24, 2016
Location: France
Subject Fields: Atlantic
History / Studies, Early Modern History and Period Studies, Economic
History / Studies, European History / Studies, World History / Studies
Call for papers: Products from Overseas in Europe. Circulation, Transformation and Consumption (16th-18th centuries)
June 30, 2016 (University of Nantes, France)
This
workshop aims at bringing together scholars working on various tropical
and colonial goods: raw materials, foodstuff, plants, drugs, and
manufactured goods shipped from Asia, Africa and America to Europe.
Recent
studies in the history of consumption, long-distance trade and global
history have provided historians with a better understanding on the many
ways in which the trade in overseas products affected European
consumption and manufacturing in the early modern ages (Berg 2015,
Riello 2013, Coquery 2011). Sugar, coffee, tobacco, amongst others,
transformed European taste and habits of consumption as they slowly
started to be sold to new consumers through networks of wholesalers and
retailers in Europe. Luxury goods from China and India challenged
European manufacturers to create new consumer goods that would conform
to European taste. Porcelains, lacquer ware, printed textiles stimulated
artistic and technical innovation as they became more popular. Raw
materials and semi-processed goods, be it dyestuffs, gums, or cotton
threads sustained this development by providing European manufactures
and workshops with products that could not be produced in temperate
climates.
This workshop will focus on 3 main topics :
1)Costs and risks in transportation:
Transportation
is a crucial moment in long-distance trade. This constraint can also
contribute to the success of a commercial operation, through the control
of time, information, packaging, insurance and shipping, and business
partners. When the goods first arrive in Europe, they are repackaged,
and sent further away to other European countries, or to the inner land,
then sold to grocers and retailers. We welcome contributions on any of
these stages of transportation.
2) Processing and distribution strategies:
Many
overseas products are processed upon arrival: to fit European taste,
porcelains, for instance, are painted so as to look as Japanese Imari,
calicoes and printed textiles are cut, sewn, to be sold as furniture
fabrics or dresses. Cochineal, indigo, dyewoods disappear in the dyeing
process to offer bright colors fit for the latest fashions. Thus,
overseas products are not only seen as finished goods, but also as
materials that middlemen and makers can shape.
3) Differentiation strategies, product qualities and consumption patterns:
Overseas
goods in Europe are available with a wide range of qualities. How their
reputation is constructed and changes over time and space still needs
to be explored. But qualities are also often modeled to fit different
patterns of consumption. Overseas products are sold in rural and urban
markets, as luxuries and as necessities, and for different uses. We
particularly look forward to contributions on lesser-known areas (rural
and smaller towns markets) and market segments (popular consumption, use
of raw materials in European manufactures).
Proposals (in French or in English) should be submitted at the following address: jeultramarins@gmail.com with a one-page paper abstract, a paper title and a brief curriculum vitae by March 24, 2016.
A longer version of the CFP (in French) is available here: http://afhe.hypotheses.org/8519
We have a limited budget to contribute towards potential travel and accommodation.
Papers will be published in the French review Enquêtes et Documents.
Organizing committee :
Marguerite Martin (Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne)
Maud Villeret (Université de Nantes)
Scientific committee :
Natacha Coquery (Université Lumière Lyon 2)
Bruno Blondé (Université d’Anvers)
Dominique Margairaz (Université Paris I)
Philippe Meyzie (Université Bordeaux Montaigne)
Olivier Raveux (Université Aix-Marseille)
Éric Schnakenbourg (Université de Nantes)
Selected bibliography :
Berg Maxine et Clifford Helen, Consumers and luxury. Consumer culture in Europe 1650-1850, Manchester, New York, Manchester University Press, 1999.
Coquery Natacha (dir.), Ville, consommation et exotisme dans l’Europe Atlantique XVe-XVIIIe siècles, dossier spécial de la revue Histoire Urbaine n°30, 2011.
de vries Jan, The Industrious Revolution. Consumer behavior and the household economy, 1650 to the present, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Engel Alexander, Farben der Globalisierung. Die Entstehung moderner Märkte für Farbstoffe 1500-1900, Frankfurt am Main - New York, Campus, 2009.
Fox Robert, Nieto Galan Agusti (dir.), Natural Dyestuffs and Industrial culture in Europe 1750-1880, Canton, Science History Publications, 1999.
Hilaire-Pérez Liliane, « Les échanges techniques entre la France et l’Angleterre au XVIIIe siècle : la révolution industrielle en question », dans Beaurepaire Pierre-Yves et Pourchasse Pierrick (dir.), Les circulations internationales en Europe, années 1680-années 1780, Rennes, PUR, 2010, p. 197-213.
Hilaire-Pérez Liliane, L’invention technique au siècle des Lumières, Paris, Albin Michel, 2000.
McKendrick Neil, Brewer John, Plumb J. H., The Birth of a consumer society. The commercialization of Eighteenth-century, Londres, Europa publications limited, 1982.
Meyzie Philippe, L’alimentation en Europe à l’époque moderne, Paris, Armand Colin, 2010.
Mui Hoh-Cheung et Mui Lorna H., Shops and shopkeeping in Eighteenth-Century England, London, Routledge, 1989.
Raveux
Olivier, « The Orient and the dawn of Western industrialization :
Armenian calico printers from Constantinople in Marseilles (1669-1686),
dans Berg, Maxine (dir.), Goods from the East, 1600-1800: Trading Eurasia, Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015, p. 77-91.
Riello Georgio (dir.), The Spinning World. A global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200-1850, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009.
Riello Georgio, Cotton: the fabric that made the modern world, Cambridge, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Roche Daniel, Histoire des choses banales. Naissance de la consommation (XVIIe-XIXe siècle), Paris, Fayard, 1997.
Weatherill Lorna, Consumer behaviour and material culture in Britain 1660-1760, Londres-New York, Routledge, 1988.