CfP: Social Technologies and Global Knowledge Economies, 1750-1850
Workshop CFP: Social Technologies and Global Knowledge Economies, 1750-1850
4th to 6th April 2019, Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Goettingen
Conveners: Rachel Koroloff, Laura Nicolì, Joanna Wharton and Dominik Hünniger
The remarkable density of connections that characterized knowledge
production between 1750 and 1850 has long figured in definitions of the
"rise of modernity." The commerce of ideas through correspondence
networks and print as well as manuscript circulation in salons, learned
societies and other institutions, has been celebrated as foundational to
modernity's more conspicuous highlights, from the Scientific Revolution
and the Enlightenment to the political articulation of universal human
rights. Indeed, the circulation of "useful knowledge" – or, in today’s
phraseology, the knowledge economy – remains integral to the modern
concept of progress, formulated and adopted during the brief period
between 1750 and 1850.
This interdisciplinary workshop, organized by Lichtenberg-Kolleg, the
Goettingen Institute for Advanced Study, will focus on interrogating
these narratives of modernity in the context of the emergence of an
array of ‘social technologies’ that enhanced networks of knowledge
production and circulation at the turn of the nineteenth century. From
communication, transmission, and circulation, to innovations that
enabled, impinged upon, or otherwise shaped social relations, we welcome
papers on all aspects of socio-technological change and their relation
to the development of global economies of knowledge production and
circulation from 1750 to 1850.
Topics of interest include (but are not restricted to) the role of media
(including paper, ink), technologies (including manuscript, print,
electric impulses), and practices (including translation and taxonomy)
in knowledge production; the role of collaboration and infrastructure in
the circulation of knowledge; the changing roles of institutions
(including schools, hospitals, prisons, universities, libraries,
collections and gardens) in the wider knowledge economy; social
environments and their relation to bodily technologies; and the
development of revolutionary technology and radical media in this
period.
We invite proposals for 20-minute presentations in English. To apply
please email a title and abstract (no more than 300 words) along with a
one-page CV in either MS Word or PDF format to the conference organizers
(lichtenbergkolleg@zvw.uni-goe