Turku 2009 June 4th-5th

Call for papers

The research program Consumption, Identity, and Networks During and After the Age of the Slave Trade (CINDAST) at the Department of History at Åbo Akademi University solicits papers for a workshop entitled Consumption, power and culture in the early modern Atlantic world.

Keynote-speakers:

Professor Linda Heywood, Boston University
Professor Rita Pemberton, University of West Indies
Professor David Richardson, University of Hull
Professor Carole Shammas, University of Southern California
Professor John Thornton, Boston University

In the last two decades consumption has figured as the theme and framework of a wide range of historical research. The notion of the seventeenth century as a time when the consumer society was born has profoundly influenced the scholarship of that period and, according to some observers, replaced the industrial revolution as a meta-narrative. Without overlooking the production aspect in the history of “goods” – the histories of production and consumption are closely interlinked – consumption can be connected to a wide variety of themes ranging from the material history of everyday life to questions concerning colonialism, globalization, gender, class, identity, creolization and hybridization.

Possible topics include

* Networks of production and consumption
* Changing commodity chains
* Consumption of goods in the shaping of ideas of identity
* Cultural and gendered aspects of consumption
* Urban consumption and the built environment
* Consumption as an aspect of creolization

The workshop offers both doctoral students and established researchers a platform to present and discuss their research. Papers that pick up on some of the themes above are especially welcome. Out of the 30 minutes reserved for each presentation 20 minutes should be devoted to the presentation proper. The presentation will then be followed by a 10 minute discussion.

Please send your proposal for individual presentations or for entire sessions (including 3–4 presentations) to Laura Hollsten at laura.hollsten@abo.fi. Make sure to enclose contact details and a 500-word abstract of your talk. The deadline for submissions is 15 February 2009.

Further information will appear on the workshop homepage: www.abo.fi/student/histconsumptionworkshop