The MPP Format

Organization

The organization process begins in the autumn of even years, when a CFP is circulated, inviting expressions of interest. In the spring of the odd year, expressions of interest are collected and selected, and authors are invited to turn in a full paper incorporating preliminary feedback from the organizing team. First drafts are due in the autumn of the odd year. Over the winter months, the organizing team reads each paper and provides extensive feedback, ensuring that papers 'talk to each other' and follow the definitions and guidelines (see below). Presenters revise their papers and turn them in several weeks before the colloquium, in May of the even year.

The colloquium takes place in the month of June in even years.

Meetings

We tend to hold the colloquium in a location that is difficult to get to, in a place that may be lovely but that also encourages focus rather than tourism. Each participant reads and takes part in all discussions. We stay in the same hotel. Meals are covered by the organizers to encourage further discussion after our formal sessions.

Participants are comprised of presenters, observers, and chairs. Each presenter has five minutes to provide the group with contexts for the paper and possibly pose questions. No PowerPoint presentations are allowed. The chair takes questions from the group. One finger means that the participant introduces a new topic; two fingers indicate that there is a follow-up question or comment on the same topic. Each presenter is given a one-hour slot. Usually, we have a total of 9-12 papers, and we put them in clusters of two. Normally, there is also a two-hour slot devoted to discussing an original document that is related to the focus of the CFP.

Definitions and Parameters

Papers for the colloquium should be grounded in one of the following five general areas:

· the operations, theoretical and practical, of institutions such as banks (including central banking), joint-stock companies, public debt, and/or paper money

· the effect of diverse understandings of emerging financial instruments and theories upon contemporary political debates as demonstrated in the literature and legislative debates of the period

· the influence of the successes and failures of specific legislative and/or financial proposals on the development of political and economic programs throughout this period

· the impact of literature and legislative debates of the period on people’s perceptions of the financial revolution and/or its political consequences

· the evolution of personal credit and attitudes towards it, and their impact on the course of the financial revolution

‘Money’ is used broadly to cover the core economic components of the financial revolution. ‘Power’ is taken to mean the contest between royalty, aristocracy, gentry, merchants, financiers, and other formal or informal groupings for influence and standing. ‘Print’ refers to how the interplay of money and power were explained, analysed, explicated, and misrepresented (whether deliberately or not) in newspapers, pamphlets, novels, plays, illustrations, and other printed material intended for circulation.

In all cases, consideration should be given to the degree to which the print material under discussion shaped the development of institutions and the implementation of financial policies, and influenced political discourse.