Call for proposals: “The State, the Household, and Discourses of “Economic Development” in the Long Eighteenth Century”

Call for proposals: “The State, the Household, and Discourses of “Economic Development” in the Long Eighteenth Century”

This session will be part of the program of the 2017 meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies to be held in Minneapolis, March 30-April 2.   

Session description: In many world regions new texts of various sorts that engaged with what now would now be called ‘economic development strategies’ multiplied between the late 17th and the early 19th centuries. Some of these were written by and for state officials; but others were particularly addressed to heads of households or local officials. In the European case these would include household, for example, governance manuals (that might specify how household head could most profitably deploy the labor of family members and servants) as well as treatises on political economy or encyclopedias. In China, they also could take the form of prescriptive manuals about household governance as well as sections within local gazetteers or elaborately illustrated descriptions of agricultural and textile production techniques. Through these genres, emerging ideas about the economy and the place in it of both local households and central states were reaching new and expanded audiences. We welcome proposals for papers addressing these issues in any part of the world during the long eighteenth century.

Please send brief paper proposals (around 200 words) to session organizers:

MJ Maynes (mayne001@umn.edu) and Ann Waltner (waltn001@umn.edu)

by September 1, 2016

Participants in the program must become dues-paying ASECS members as well as pay the registration fee. Participants outside of the United States need to become members  of ASECS or must belong to a constituent society of ISECS.