Wednesday 15 March, 2-3.30pm
Co-sponsored with the Birmingham Research Institute for History and Cultures (BRIHC), this online roundtable features world-leading scholars, including Sujit Sivasundaram (Cambridge) and Joanna Innes (Oxford), in discussion on the late eighteenth century’s global turn. Please follow the link to register online for this event.
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Wednesday 19th April, 4pm-6pm*
Alice Rhodes (York) and Kate Gibson (Manchester)
Eighteenth Century Research from the Cadbury Library Collections
The most recent recipients of our annual postgraduate research fellowship (co-sponsored by the British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies), Alice Rhodes and Kate Gibson conducted their research at the Cadbury Library towards the end of the last academic year. In this double-bill seminar, they will present their work on bodies and voices in Romantic literature (Rhodes) and fostering and adoption in Britain (Gibson).
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Wednesday 26th April, 4-5pm*
Ronan Love (Warwick)
“It is the deficit which is the treasure of the state; it is the public debt which has been the seed of our freedom”: State Finance and Sovereign Power from the Old Regime to the French Revolution
In this talk, part of our ongoing exchange series with the University of Warwick, fourth-year PhD student Ronan Love will present his research on government finance from the Old Regime to the French Revolution. Whilst most historical work emphasises how the state’s ailing finances were a constant impediment to the proper functioning of the French state in the eighteenth century, this talk will take a different approach. Whilst always harbouring the potential for crisis, the nation’s finances were also, under both the Old Regime and the Revolution, a key field for the deployment and exercise of power. As a key tenet of sovereignty both in the modern and early modern worlds, the talk will argue in its broadest sense that if we are to properly explain the fall of the monarchy, the coming of the Revolution, and then how successive revolutionary governments tried (and ultimately failed) to legitimise themselves, we must attend to the particular nexus between sovereign power and the state’s financial obligations in each of these transitions.
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Thursday 8th to Saturday 10th June
Sociability in Politics, Food, and Travel in the Early Modern Era
Incorporating the annual Midlands Eighteenth Century Research Network event, our colleagues at Warwick will this year host an international conference on early modern sociability, with keynote lectures by Dena Goodman (Michigan) and Rebecca Earle (Warwick). Further information and the call for papers, closing on January 31st, is available here.
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*for these on-campus events, I will circulate further information and registration processes two weeks in advance, which will include information about how to join for drinks and dinner. Please save the date now, and register later!