Call for Papers
Applications due: 15 October 2017
Economic inequality in pre-industrial societies: causes and effects

51^st Study Week (Settimana) of the Fondazione Datini (Prato, Italy): 12-15 May 2019.

Recent interest in inequality has focused on its real or perceived effects on economic growth and social development, in contrast to past debates which concentrated more on the injustice of income inequality. Both scholars and policy makers are now asking how democratic and inclusive societies can function effectively with high inequality; the OECD has voiced concerns about the negative effects on economic growth, while the UN is worried about the effect of inequality on societal vulnerability. These negative effects may materialize directly in terms of people’s participation in the economy, human capital formation, or productive investments, or indirectly, through the growing leverage of the wealthy, the erosion of societal cohesion and resilience, or even outbursts of conflict and unrest.

The insights offered by historical developments have been a major feature of these recent debates about inequality. Especially striking is the scholarly attention paid to pre-industrial periods in assessing the causes and effects of inequality; indeed, few works postulate any fundamental divide between the pre-industrial and industrial periods. This scholarship, however, tends to look at very long, grand developments, generally at a macro-level, often defined as the ‘nation-state’ of the nineteenth century, a perspective that neglects the essential regional and local organization of the economy in the pre-industrial period. Figures at the level of national statistics by themselves do not say a lot, but an historical approach that contextualizes inequality by reference to social relations, institutions, access to power, and the cultural or religious legitimation of power facilitates a better understanding of the mechanisms that drive inequality and its effects.

The study week consists of four components:

I. Sources and methods:

How can we best measure economic inequality in the pre-industrial period? What do the figures assembled on forms of economic inequality actually say? Is it possible to compare levels of inequality?

II. Causes of economic inequality:

What was the role of privileges, monopolies, markets and market competition, and institutional arrangements more generally in the development of economic inequality? How did such factors as religion, legislation, guild regulation, taxation, communal agriculture, and charity create, legitimize, or mitigate inequality? Were these factors explicitly aimed at reducing inequality or did they only indirectly do so?

III. Effects of economic inequality on the economy:

How did economic inequality affect welfare levels and living standards? What were the effects of inequality on investments and economic growth? What were the effects of inequality on economic policies?

IV. Effects of economic inequality on society:

How did economic inequality affect different social groups? What were the effects of economic inequality on social coherence, on social peace, violence and revolts? What were the effects of wealth inequality on political power/ leverage? How did economic inequality affect societal resilience vis-à-vis disasters? How did it affect ecological sustainability, use of natural resources, and human capital formation?

Expected results

Research papers selected for the Settimana conference will will be presented and discussed at Prato in the course of the Study Week 2019. After the discussion at the Settimana sessions, scholars may complete and revise their texts by 30 June 2019. All contributions received by the institute will be subject to anonymous adjudication before publication.

Call for papers

Scholars are invited to send their proposal by compiling an abstract that will be reviewed by the Scientific Council Committee. The application form is available at: http://www.istitutodatini.it/temi/eng/call.htm

The paper should represent an original contribution and either generally comparative or a specific case-study that speaks to the larger questions set out here.

Papers proposed by projects or collaborative groups that link scholars from different countries and institutions will be assessed with particular interest if they offer a comparative analysis in geographical or diachronic terms across two or more related research themes. We will also consider innovative session formats for these type of proposals.

The completed format must be received at the following address by 15 October 2017:
Fondazione Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica “F. Datini”
Via ser Lapo Mazzei 37, I 59100 Prato, ITALY
e-mail: datini@istitutodatini.it

The Scientific Council Committee will only take fully completed formats into consideration and will decide whether they have been accepted by January 2018, when authors of the selected proposals will be notified. Depending on the Institute’s financial resources, at least 25 scholars will be provided with hospitality at Prato for the Study Week. The Council may also invite up to 20 additional scholars to participate in the project without any right to hospitality or reimbursement.

In addition: The Fondazione Datini will award for the Prato conference up to 10 Travel Bursaries to cover travel costs for the conference to the maximum of 250 euros per grant for selected postgraduate doctoral students and postdoctoral scholars who do not hold a full-time academic position.

Applicants must send the request for the travel bursary to the Fondazione Datini with their paper by 31 March 2019. The grant will be paid during the conference on the presentation of travel receipts.

The members of the Council are: Erik Aerts (Leuven, President), Laurence Fontaine (Paris, Vice-President), Carlo Marco Belfanti (Brescia, Vice-President), Giampiero Nigro (Florence, Scientific Director), Hilario Casado Alonso (Valladolid), Sergej Pavlovic Karpov (Moscow), Olga Katsiardi-Hering (Athens), Maryanne Kowaleski (New York), Paolo Malanima (Catanzaro), Michael North (Greifswald), Luciano Palermo (Rome), Gaetano Sabatini (Rome).

All submitted contributions must be original and not previously published or translated from previous publications.

The provisional texts of the selected contributions must reach the Fondazione Datini by 31 March 2019. They will be put online (with protected access reserved for the participants of the project and members of the Scientific Committee) in the Institute’s webpages before the Study Week in order to allow a deeper discussion of their contents.

At the Settimana participants will offer a summary presentation of their contribution lasting 20 minutes.

The definitive texts of the paper, revised by the authors following the discussion (maximum 60,000 characters) must be sent to the Institute by 30 June 2019.

They will be subject to anonymous adjudication. Texts that pass the assessment stage will be published in a special volume (together with two abstracts prepared by the author) within a year. For the purpose of publication, texts will be accepted in Italian, French, English, Spanish and German. Simultaneous translation from and to Italian and English will be carried out during the Study Week.

CfP: “Writing the human/animal continuum in the Middle Ages”, special session at the ICMS Kalamazoo 2018

CfP deadline: 15^th September 2017

The distance between human and non-human across medieval culture could be populated by a plethora of hybrid beings whose identity lingered between the two categories, creating a space of indeterminacy, of life in-between species. Humanoid monsters with animal features, or animals with disturbing resemblances to humans, traced a constellation of possibilities of life in the continuum. While scientific and theological texts tended to present this variety of beings as a sheer demonstration of the variety of God’s creation, the hybrid could not but channel also fear and fascination. Wherever these monsters appeared in art, literature and science, the possibility for the human body to merge with the animal brought along reflections concerning ethnic identity, cultural norms, relation with the environment, social and political order.

This session aims to highlight the role of human/animal hybrids of medieval imagination in a centuries-long meditation around an open and fluid concept of human. To this purpose, we encourage medievalists to interrogate pre-modern examples of indeterminacy in the human/animal continuum by interrogating scientific and fictional texts, chronicles, works of art, pieces of material culture, produced in Europe across the Middle Ages. The papers of this session should address one or more of the following questions: how do these hybrids substantiate the concept of human? how do human/animal hybrids establish a connection with humans or animals and what do they mean for them? where does the epistemological and cultural framework of the author or the audience/user stand in relation with the hybrid? how does the use of the hybrid change across time and languages?

We invite paper proposals from scholars at all levels and from all fields of medieval studies (literature, philosophy, history, archaeology, history of art). Please submit an abstract of 250 words to antonella.sciancalepore@uclouvain.be by September 15, 2017.​

Call for Papers: The Animal in Medieval Romance, at the 53rd International Congress on Medieval Studies (2018)

The ‘animal turn’ is one of the newest and most exciting developments in medieval scholarship. Researchers are increasingly interrogating the role of animals in society and culture, the interaction between human and beast, and the formation of human and non-human identities.

The Medieval Romance Society is hosting two inter-related sessions on the role of animals in romances at the 53rd International Congress on Medieval Studies 2018, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo. We welcome papers which draw on a broad range of methodologies and address a variety of themes relating to animals.

Session I: The Animal in Medieval Romance I: The Animal as Friend
This session invites papers examining the co-dependent relationships between animals and humans in romances. We encourage a broad interpretation of this theme, including cross-species friendships, sexual and romantic couplings, domestication and farmyard animals, and animals as parental surrogates.

Session II: The Animal in Medieval Romance II: The Animal as Product
This session welcomes papers which examine how animal bodies are exploited in medieval romances. Even after death, animals continue to exert their presence in romance narrative through their earthly remains. The genre’s commodification of bestial bodies also extends beyond texts to the physical product of vellum upon which they are transmitted. Papers might explore themes of butchery, the wearing of skins and furs, the use of bone and ivory, and the production of parchment and manuscript-binding.

Please send abstracts of 250-300 words to Tim Wingard at tw659@york.ac.uk by 15th September 2017. For more information, visit: medievalromanceanimal.wordpress.com/

Material Processes of Medieval Art and Architecture
CAA 106^th Annual Conference
Los Angeles, February 21–24, 2018

Chairs: Kristine Tanton (kristanton@gmail.com) and Meredith Cohen (mcohen@humnet.ucla.edu)

This session will explore the material processes of medieval objects and monuments. Art and architectural historians focus most often on the finished product, but there is much to be gained by considering the processes of making as a site of constant negotiation and conflict. Amendments to objects and structures present distinct moments that may be defined beyond Marxist approaches. For example, what are the phenomenological experiences related to making? How do the inherent temporalities in artistic production shed light on decisions and workflow, as well as temporary, transitory, and intermediate solutions? How do changes in materials, such as the addition of gold leaf to manuscripts or gems to a reliquary, serve as signs of problem solving or problem making? New technologies such as digital reconstructions, laser scans, X-ray fluorescence, and Raman spectroscopies provide us with the opportunity to understand the conceptual processes of art making in the Middle Ages as never before through reverse engineering. We invite presenters to analyze medieval objects and structures in relation to the inherent temporalities in working procedures involving ephemerality, instantaneity, or memory to explore what it means to make in the Middle Ages.

DEADLINE FOR PAPER PROPOSALS: August 14, 2017

Proposals should be sent directly to the session chairs. Each proposal should include the following items:

1. Completed session participation proposal form (located at the end of the 2018 Call for Participation, which is available for download at http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/call-for-participation.pdf)

– Make sure your name appears exactly as you would like it listed in the conference program and conference website.

– Make sure your affiliation appears as the official, recognized name of your institution (do not list multiple affiliations)

– Make sure to include an active CAA Member ID (all participants must be current members through February 24, 2018; inactive or lapsed members will be pulled from participation on August 28, 2017.

2. Paper/project abstract: maximum 250 works, in the form of a single paragraph.
3. Email or letter explaining your interest in the session, expertise in the topic, and availability during the conference.
4. A shortened CV