Call for Papers

This colloquium will gather scholars from a wide range of disciplines to study the intersections between public finance, politics and literature during Britain's so-called Financial Revolution. (The term 'British' is used loosely to refer to all constituent parts of the United Kingdom and also to Ireland and the colonies. The term 'literature' is broadly defined to include newspapers, pamphlets, treatises, novels, plays, and prints.)

The colloquium organizers invite papers of two broad types: original research on any aspect of the revolution or overviews of the principal issues and arguments in some broad area of secondary scholarship relating to the revolution (with the intent of introducing scholars from other disciplines to the work going on within your own discipline). Graduate students and junior scholars are particularly encouraged to contribute.

Papers must address broad questions that would be of interest to, and be written in a style that is accessible to, a non-specialist, interdisciplinary audience. Preference will be given to papers that consider the influence and role of texts written by contemporaries about the financial revolution. Also very welcome would be papers considering British attitudes toward developments in French public financing, especially to John Law's 'System' and the so-called 'Mississippi Bubble'.

The organizers hope to select two papers each from the following three broad subject areas:

• the financial innovations themselves
• the impact of these innovations on politics (including the political functions of contemporary writing on public finance)
• the ways in which the innovations were portrayed in contemporary literature

Proposals may be submitted to any of the colloquium organizers listed below. Proposals of 250 words are due 15 June 2009. Those whose proposals are accepted will be asked to get a finished paper to the conference organizers by 15 December 2009. The final decision to accept or reject papers will be made in mid-February 2010 and the program will be published shortly thereafter. Final drafts of accepted papers will be due on 1 May 2010 and will be circulated among colloquium participants in advance. The colloquium is an initiative of 'Money, Power and Print', an association of scholars interested in an interdisciplinary approach to the Financial Revolution. The association hosted similar colloquia at Regina, Saskatchewan (2004), Armagh, Northern Ireland (2006), and St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador (2008).