Results
Chris Fauske kindly, and with much labour, worked up a comprehensive bibliograpy of all the works cited in papers submitted to the colloquium. The bibliography does not include any unpublished sources. A PDF version of the document is attached to this page. A copy of the original Word document is available upon request to Chris.
It was agreed at the final session of the colloquium to aim for a conference volume. Editing of the volume was completed early in 2006. The publisher (University of Delaware Press) indicated in December 2006 that the volume had been approved for publication.
It was also decided to work toward a second interdisciplinary colloquium, on much the same subject, in 2006.
Here follows Chris' reflections about the first colloquium and his thoughts on how a second one might be structured.
First of all, and I know it's been said before, thank you to everyone who made the colloquium at the very least an unmitigated social success. I mention this up front because, frankly, such a good time was had by all that I was skeptical for a while of whether it would be possible to judge the academic success of the event on its merits alone.
I do believe it is possible to do so.
When Rick, Ivar, and I first discussed this, and in many of the e-mails which were sent as the event took shape, we hoped to construct an event that would open our respective eyes to all the other work and types of work being done in the area we so broadly defined as "The Financial Revolution, 1688-1756". I have to say we thought this definition both generous and yet specific enough.
It turns out we were both wrong and right. The discussions did not, generally, stray too far from the dates we had established. But it didn't always stick as firmly as we would have liked to the subject of the "financial revolution". Nor were disciplinary boundaries crossed as effectively as we had hoped.
All the same, the discussion in the final session did suggest we had made significant progress, and the enthusiasm of so many of you in submitting your bibliographies toward the completion of an uber-bibliography (it's still not too late to do so), and the e-mails asking if / when a book project would be undertaken and asking for the chance to participate, suggested that, in fact, we had done pretty well.
What gathering in Regina perhaps achieved spectacularly well was to help clarify what some of the questions we could ask are, and to highlight avenues worth pursuing. As we reflect more carefully, I think we are all coming to a sense that down the road, armed with the papers that are still on the website, bolstered by the e-mail distribution list, focused by the prospectus for the book (forthcoming), the event in Regina will have more than justified itself.
Indeed, we are already thinking ahead.
And so:
We have drawn up a prospectus for a book; it can be viewed here. The prospectus will form the basis of both our submissions to publishers and our guidance to delegates who wish to proceed. We hope you will find it includes clear instructions for submissions of essays and that it reflects not just the formal work we did in Regina but also the discussions and reflections that took place around the event and after it. We hope, too, you will find that it formalizes the understanding developed during the colloquium about the purpose that brought us together. Certainly, the work we are doing quietly behind the scenes at the moment is work that is only possible because of the contributions of all of us in Regina.
We are also thinking about a second colloquium. We would hope to improve it based on the experiences of the last one.
One thought we had is that four papers a session was perhaps too many. There was little time left for discussion of each one, and if the conversation started to focus on one trope or one strand, it was hard to pull it back to a theme that addressed more than that point.
The chairs worked diligently each session to give everyone a chance to speak, but the steady increase in the number of fingers / hands that were to be raised depending on the matter at hand demonstrated the problem with being fair and equitable.
We have thought of various remedies: fewer papers per session, a chair better briefed than were we to return the discussion to the subject of the papers and their connection to the topic, more advice before the colloquium to paper writers about honing their arguments (where appropriate), asking chairs to start each session with a summary of what had happened to date and a reflection on the progress being made by the colloquium as a whole, rather than relying on individual sessions to add up to at least the sum of their parts. Another possibility is to invite some of the "old hands" to return not to present / discuss their own papers, not as "respondents" in the traditional sense, but as mentors and advisors as the discussion develops anew.
We hope to keep the current web site up and add to it to include the prospectus for the book, news reports about the consequences of the colloquium among ourselves, the extended bibliography, etc. As we make plans for the next meeting, we will be able to use the existing web site to shape the next colloquium.
Also, there are a few obvious people to invite to the next event, and no doubt you can think of others we have yet to hear about. While we would hope to see all of us gathered again wherever it is we meet, new ideas and fresh faces would make for a rewarding time. We are wondering how to balance the success that is possible because of the personal relationships that quickly develop and the desire to extend our circle of contacts.
A suggestion has already been made about creating an on-line chat room / bulletin board, etc. Not a bad idea at all, but one that none of us right now can undertake and, in any case, we think that we are still a small enough group that the e-mail list distributed among ourselves will work fine for now. Perhaps as our circle of influence spreads...
But what made this event so successful on a personal and potentially collaborative level was the good nature and camaraderie of the delegates. We most certainly hope to preserve that spirit and to foster its spread.
Thank you for making the event the success it was. We don't wish to impose further, but we will be most grateful to anyone who cares to communicate their own frank thoughts about the colloquium, especially what worked or did not work and how it could be improved if we were to do it another time.