Stadt: Münster

Beginn: 2019-11-06

Ende: 2019-11-09

URL: https://www.uni-muenster.de/Romanistik/Aktuelles/tagung_protagonistsofproduction.html

On the literary stage, business owners are primarily shown in a negative light. They seldom appear as protagonists but make particularly common antagonists. Recurrent topoi of this biased literary portrayal are the themes of the ‘business owners in a tight spot’ and that of the ‘exploitative capitalist’. Recently and especially in English and German media, there was also much talk of the ‘crisis of craftsmanship’. From a historical perspective, the widespread belief of the crookedness of bosses, industrialists and business owners is primarily a consequence of the onset of the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century and of the political ideologies reacting to this development. But what form did the literary picture of business owners and likewise economic agents take before it became the subject of primarily negative assessments in the epoch of industrialization? The conference focuses on this question by concentrating on systematic, diachronic and comparative research into eighteenth century portrayals of business owners, entrepreneurs, peasants, craftspeople and other ‘protagonists of production’.

The conference sheds a light on how those protagonists are presented
a) in different media, like economic tracts, literature and press, and
b) in different European countries, such as Spain, England, France, and Italy.
It is precisely these protoindustrial figures working in production, who have as yet not been given due academic attention. This particularly applies to female characters. While the concept of the femina oeconomica has increasingly been the focus of literary study especially, women involved in production processes still fail to be represented in academia.

The conference explicitly situates research into the multifaceted anthropological portrayals of entrepreneurship, work, craftsmanship and farming in the context of an international European Enlightenment movement. In addition to considering the similarities and differences in the positive portrayals of male and female figures working in production, we will also ask to what extent these positive portrayals serve propaganda purposes. The conference strongly encourages international exchange and the formation of connections between the different research perspectives of economists, historians and literary scholars beyond the boundaries of individual disciplines.

The conference will open on Wednesday, 6 November at 18.00h s.t. with a keynote held by the reknown economist Deidre McCloskey from Chicago.

Organizers:
Dr. Beatrice Schuchardt, Münster
Prof. Dr. Christian von Tschilschke, Münster

Beitrag von: Beatrice Schuchardt

Redaktion: Unbekannte Person

Verbundene Projekte / Publikationen