Historians, philosophers, sociologists, scholars of art, literature and drama have begun to attend more closely to the role of debt in early modern culture. It has become clear that private debt, nebulously conceived as credit, was formative in the production and reproduction of social relations, political ideology, even subjectivity. The history of debt has become an object of serious interdisciplinary interest, but the question of how apparently distinct forms of debt co-developed is often suspended.

Early Modern Debts will stimulate rigorous interdisciplinary work on debt and credit in early modern culture. It addresses the relationship between general theories of debt and particular experiences or operations of debt, and explores how different sorts of credit interacted.

The organizers call for papers that take, as their central theme, debt and the interrelationship of different kinds of debt in early modern culture. Papers of a comparative and/or multilingual nature will be preferred.

Themes might include: networks of obligation; patronage & service; collection; guilt & sin; circulation & travel; indebted consciousness; literary & artistic debts; oaths & vows; citizenship; obligation & translation; law & credit; trade & time; revenge; poetic economies; forgiveness; unindebtedness; money; &c

Please send a title and an abstract of 300 words to early.modern.debts@gmail.com

Informal inquiries to: george.oppitz-trotman@uni-bamberg.de

Deadline: 1 November 2016

Website: early-modern-debts.space