Princeton Fellowship Topic Is “Risk and Fortune”

During the academic years 2016-17 and 2017-18, the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University will focus on the topic of “Risk and Fortune.” According to the website:

Notions of risk have been important to human societies for centuries. Soothsaying, insurance, medical prognostication, financial investment, and gambling all contend with—or try to contain—possible losses. Conversely, good fortune has had its talismans and theorists throughout history. How have different cultures tried to tame chance, or comprehend its whims? To what degree have the practices of commerce relied upon, or alternatively reified, risk? Do technological systems generate hazards they are not capable of controlling? This two-year seminar will bring together scholars working on risk and fortune in historical societies around the world in all time periods, on topics including (but not restricted to) economics, science, religion, industry, statistics, and agriculture.

More about Davis Center Fellowships, which are residential, can be found here; application materials are here. Inquiries may be addressed to davisctr@princeton.edu. Applicants must have their doctoral degrees in hand at the time of application. The submission deadline is December 1, 2015.
The Davis Center's goal is to foster research on chosen themes through a weekly seminar, conferences, and workshops. Emphasis is placed on interdisciplinary approaches and subjects that span different geographical areas and periods. The director is Philip Nord.

The Exchange has moved to the BHC's website

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Dear subscribers to The Exchange: I am happy to announce that our blog is moving platforms. For almost a decade, the Business History Conference has used Blogger to publish and archive posts. However, in early 2021, the blogging site announced that their email serving service would be terminated. In addition, we noticed that many of our subscribers had stopped receiving the blog’s emails, and our subscription provides very limited reporting. In agreement, the Electronic Media Oversight Committee , web administrator Shane Hamilton, and web editor Paula de la Cruz-Fernández decided to move our web blog from Blogger to our website . We now write to you to request that if you wish to continue receiving announcements from the BHC, please subscribe here: https://thebhc.org/subscribe-exchange Interested people will be asked to log into their BHC’s account or open one, free. If you have questions, please email The Business History Conference <web-admin [at] thebhc.org> Through The

Regina Blaszczyk on the Business of Color

In September, MIT Press published Regina Lee Blaszczyk 's book, The Color Revolution , in which she "traces the relationship of color and commerce, from haute couture to automobile showrooms to interior design, describing the often unrecognized role of the color profession in consumer culture." Readers can see some of the 121 color illustrations featured in the book at the MIT PressLog here and here . The author has recently written an essay on her research for the book in the Hagley Archives for the Hagley Library and Archives newsletter. Reviews can be found in the New York Times , The Atlantic , Leonardo , and Imprint ; one can listen to an audio interview with Reggie Blaszczyk, and read her posts, "How Auto Shows Sparked a Color Revolution" on the Echoes blog and "True Blue: DuPont and the Color Revolution" on the Chemical Heritage Foundation website . Also available is a CHF video of the author discussing another excerpt from her rese

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