CFP: Newberry Library Seminars of Interest

The Newberry Library's Dr. William M. Scholl Center for American History and Culture has issued a call for proposals for its 2014-2015 Seminar Series.

Visit each seminar's page for the specific call for proposals. The due date for all is April 25, 2014. Several of the seminars may be of interest, but those most relevant to readers of this blog are:

The Newberry Seminar in the History of Capitalism:
http://www.newberry.org/newberry-seminar-history-capitalism

The Newberry Seminar in Labor History:
http://www.newberry.org/newberry-seminar-labor-history

To propose a paper, please send a one-page proposal, a statement explaining the relationship of the paper to your other work, and a brief (two-page) c.v. to Carmen Jaramillo at the Dr. William M. Scholl Center for American History and Culture. Please send all materials as a single electronic attachment in one document via email to: scholl@newberry.org.

The Newberry Library is unable to provide funds for travel or lodging, but can assist in locating discounted accommodations.

Conference: “Population Histories in Context”

On September 16-18, 2014, Downing College at Cambridge (UK) will hold a conference, "Population Histories in Context: Past Achievements and Future Directions," to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure. The program is available on the Group's website, as is booking information. The deadline for registration is July 1, 2014.
    The Cambridge Group was founded in 1964 by Peter Laslett and Tony Wrigley to undertake quantitative research in family history and demographic history. For an extended description of the Group's pioneering research and publications, as well as its current projects, please see its "History" page.
    For further information about the conference, please contact Richard Smith (rms20@cam.ac.uk) or Sophy Arulanantham (sja60@cam.ac.uk).

CFP: Canadian Network for Economic History Conference

The Canadian Network for Economic History (CNEH) invites proposals for its October 24-26, 2014, conference, to be held at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. Papers will be considered on all topics, with some preference given to those relating to the theme, "Markets and Crises." Michael Bordo (Rutgers University) will give the keynote address at the conference, and Leah Platt Boustan (UCLA) will present the Mary MacKinnon Memorial Lecture.
     Paper proposals (1- or 2-page abstract) should be sent via email to Shari Eli (shari.eli@utoronto.ca) and Chris Minns (c.minns@lse.ac.uk). The deadline for proposals is June 1, 2014. Proposals from graduate students and junior scholars are strongly encouraged. Information on the venue, registration, and program will be posted at www.economichistory.ca as it becomes available.

CFP: “Trade in Animals and Animal Products in the Indian Ocean World”

The Indian Ocean World Centre (IOWC) at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, will sponsor a conference on October 23-24, 2014, on "Trade in Animals and Animal Products in the Indian Ocean World from Early Times to c.1900." According to the call for papers:

Recently, much public attention has focussed on the lucrative yet often illegal trade in the Indian Ocean world (IOW) of animal parts, including elephant tusks, rhinoceros horns, and tiger skins. However, the trade in exotic animals and animal parts in the IOW, from Africa to China, is not a modern phenomenon. Its roots can be traced back centuries and is reflected in the traditions, folklore, medicinal practices and religious beliefs of many different societies across the IOW. It has also impacted on the environment. By exploring the long-distance trade in animals and animal products as economic, cultural, and ecological phenomenon, this conference will seek to interrogate the concept of the Indian Ocean as a "world."

For a fuller discussion of the conference themes and submission information, please see the conference home page. The deadline for submission of abstracts (title and 1-2 paragraphs) is May 1, 2014. All queries should be sent to the conference organizer, Omri Bassewitch (omri.bassewitchfrenkel@mail.mcgill.ca).
    Those interested in the economic history of this area might also wish to visit the website of the Centre's major research initiative, "The Indian Ocean World: The Making of the First Global Economy in the Context of Human-Environment Interaction."

CFP Reminder: Asian Historical Economics Conference

The Fourth Asian Historical Economics Conference will be held at Bogaziçi (Bosphorus) University, Istanbul, on September 19-20, 2014. The meeting follows earlier conferences of the Asian Historical Economics Society at Venice (2008), Beijing (2010), and Tokyo (2012). The conference aims to bring together researchers working on the economic history of all regions of Asia, as well as those comparing Asia with other regions. The Program Committee invites proposals for individual papers on a number of themes, which can be found at the full call for papers. The keynote speaker for the conference will be Kenneth Pomeranz of the University of Chicago. There will also be a special session on “Science and Technology in Europe and East Asia during the Early Modern Era” with presentations from Joel Mokyr of Northwestern University and Jin Dengjian of Dickinson University.
     For each proposed paper, an abstract not exceeding 500 words, together with institutional affiliation and e-mail address of the authors, should be sent by e-mail and in Word format by March 1, 2014, to: ahec.istanbul@gmail.com. Proposals for complete sessions of three linked papers will also be considered.

Preview: Enterprise & Society March 2014 Issue

The advance digital version of the March 2014 Enterprise & Society is now available of the Oxford University Press website. In addition to many book reviews, the issue contains these articles:

Paul Duguid, "Information in the Mark and the Marketplace: A Multivocal Account"
Nate Holdren, "Incentivizing Safety and Discrimination: Employment Risks under Workmen’s Compensation in the Early Twentieth Century United States"
James W. Cortada, "When Knowledge Transfer Goes Global: How People and Organizations Learned About Information Technology, 1945–1970"
Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo, Thomas Haigh, and David L. Stearns, "How the Future Shaped the Past: The Case of the Cashless Society"
Helen Mercer, "Retailer–Supplier Relationships before and after the Resale Prices Act, 1964: A Turning Point in British Economic History?" 

Full-text access requires a subscription, but abstracts are freely available to all.

NEH Summer Institute: “The Meanings of Property”

"The Meanings of Property," a "four-week interdisciplinary NEH Summer Institute for twenty-five college and university faculty to explore the changing definitions of property," will be held June 1-27, 2014, in Poughkeepsie, New York.  The project director is Ann E. Davis, associate professor of economics, Marist College. The organizers write:

Is property a God-given natural right for human self-preservation? Is property a method of controlling other humans, such as women and slaves? Is property a means of exploitation and accumulation, or is it an essential mediator between the individual and social dimensions of life? Such questions can be found in many different disciplines, often without dialogue or interrogation. This summer institute provides the opportunity to explore these different narratives in the company of leading scholars and teachers from a range of disciplines, in a beautiful setting by the Hudson River. Successful applicants will receive stipends from NEH.

The 25 participating college and university professors in the summer institute will engage in discussion with Mary Poovey, literary scholar at New York University; Alan Ryan, professor of political science at Princeton University; John R. Searle, professor of philosophy from the University of California at Berkeley; Hendrik Hartog, professor of history at Princeton University; Stuart Banner, professor of law at the University of California at Los Angeles; Kenneth Pomeranz, professor of history at the University of Chicago, and Robert J. Goldstein, professor of law at the United States Military Academy at West Point. They will also meet Marist academic vice-president and Hudson Valley historian Thomas Wermuth, as well as director of the Hudson River Valley Institute Col. James Johnson, former military historian at West Point, and participate in historic site visits to New York City and in the Hudson Valley region.
    For a much fuller description of the Institute's rationale and goals, as well as all other necessary information, please visit the Institute's website. Questions may be addressed to project director Ann E. Davis at ann.davis@marist.edu. Applications must be postmarked by March 4, 2014.

Conference: Port Cities in World History

On March 26-28, 2014, the World History Association will offer a symposium in Barcelona, Spain, on "Port Cities in World History." The meeting will be hosted by the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. The preliminary program, which also contains abstracts of the papers, is now available. The call for papers indicated that proposals pursuing "interdisciplinary, local-to-global, comparative, or international approaches" would be welcome; the wide-ranging program reflects those criteria.
    Please visit the symposium website for additional information about registration and accommodations. Note that registration at the regular rate ends on February 28, 2014.

Business History at the OAH Meeting

The Organization of American Historians (OAH) will hold its next annual meeting on April 10-13, 2014, in Atlanta, Georgia; the meeting's theme is "Crossing Borders." The full program is now available on-line. A scan through the listings finds several sessions and papers of interest (sessions are not linked on the website, so I've identified them by day and time):
Full sessions:

"Winged Gospel or Concrete Foundation: The Transformative Power of American Aviation" (Thursday, 9-10:30 a.m.)
"Rethinking 'Free Enterprise' in the Postwar United States" (Thursday, 9-10:30 a.m.)
"Cloaked Histories, Contested Objects: Clothing, Commerce, and Encounter in the Nineteenth Century" (Thursday, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.)
"Integrating the American Workplace" (Thursday, 1:45-3:15 p.m.)
"Crossing Borders and Economic Mobility: New Answers to Old Questions" (Friday, 9:00-10:30 a.m.)
"Crossing Professional Borders in America, 1890-2000" (Friday, 9:00-10:30 a.m.)
"The Business of Immigration: Transnational Workers on the Canadian and Southwest Borderlands" (Friday, 1:50-3:20 p.m.)
"Hawaiian Border Crossings: Capital, Commodities, and Bodies" (Saturday, 9:00-10:30 a.m.)
"The Fuel at the Center of It All: New Perspectives on Coal in Industrial America" (Saturday, 9:00-10:30 a.m.)
"How the Coca Cola Company Conquered the World" (Saturday, 9:00-10:30 a.m.)
"Selling Real and Artificial Nature: Consumption and the Environment in the Twentieth-Century United States" (Saturday, 10:50 a.m.-12:20 p.m)
"Global Capitalism at the Nexus of Culture and Political Economy"  (Saturday, 10:50 a.m.-12:20 p.m)
"Service Unending: Toward a Long History of  a Service-Sector Working Class in the United States, 1800-1952" (Saturday, 10:50 a.m.-12:20 p.m.)
"Food and Agriculture in the Cold War World" (Saturday, 1:50-3:20 p.m.)
"Economies of the Unexpected: Slaves, Female Farmers, and Families across the Rural Antebellum South" (Sunday, (9:00-10:30 a.m.)

Individual papers:

Shirley Thompson, "New Negro 'Captains of Industry' and the European Tour" (Thursday, 9:00-10:30 a.m.)
Heather Lee, "The Right to Migrate: The Roots of the Chinese Restaurant Industry in U.S. Immigration Law, 1894-1915" (Thursday, 1:35-3:15 p.m.)
Elizabeth Harmon, "Debating the Business of Benevolence: Progressive Era Philanthropy, the Roclefeller Foundation, and the Federal Charter" (Thursday, 1:35-3:15 p.m.)
William Bergmann, "Masculinity and Risk in Antebellum Credit Reporting" (Friday, 9:00-10:30 a.m.)
Joshua Clark Davis, "Black Bookstores, Natural Groceries, and the Quest for Consumer Liberation in the 1960s and 70s" (Friday, 10:50 a.m.-12:20 p.m.)
John Harris, "New York Merchants and the Illegal Slave Trade to Cuba, 1850-1866" (Friday, 1:50-3:20 p.m.)
Brian Luskey, "The Slave Trade Speculations of Monroe Edwards and Lewis Tappan" (Friday, 1:50-3:20 p.m.)
Gavin Whitelaw, "Of Barcodes and Backyards: Depersonalizing Community Retail in a Japanese Convenience Store" (Friday, 1:50-3:20 p.m.)
Dong Yu, "The Debates Caused by Business Corporations in the Early Republic" (Saturday, 9:00-10:30 a.m.)
Robert Voss, "Iron Horses and Indigenous Crossroads: Railroads, Resources, and Sovereignty in Indian Territory" (Saturday, 1:50-3:20 p.m.)

This is only a sampling; many other sessions contain papers of related interest on slavery, labor, and gender. For complete information about the meeting, please consult the OAH meeting website.

HBS Conference on “Business History in Africa, Asia, and Latin America” Registration Now Open

The Business History Initiative at Harvard Business School is hosting a conference on June 13-14, 2014, "Business History in Africa, Asia, and Latin America: Integrating Course Development and New Research." The conference will focus on course development in business history and the history of capitalism beyond the developed economies of Europe, the United States, and East Asia. Topics to be discussed include how to integrate the latest research into teaching materials; new and innovative pedagogical methods, including web-based learning and the use of oral history; the availability of primary sources; and the different interests and requirements of students in business schools, history departments, and in graduate programs.
     This conference is open to educators, graduate students, and other academics with an interest in the subject. It will be held on the campus of Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Please visit the conference website for more information and to register.