One Week Left to Submit a Proposal for Invisible Hands: Reassessing the History of Work, Glasgow 16th-18th May 2018

16-18 May 2018

University of Glasgow

Invisible Hands: Reassessing the History of Work

Call for Papers

It is becoming increasingly clear that attending to the relationship between gender and work demands a fundamental reassessment of the very nature of economic performance, rather than the simple addition of women to existing accounts of economic continuity and change. This conference is designed to foster interdisciplinary and comparative discussion of the insights that gender analysis and feminist economics can bring to the history of work, and the relationship of gendered divisions of labour to economic performance more generally.

The conference will be hosted by the Centre for Gender History at the University of Glasgow, and marks the culmination of the activities of an International Network funded by the Leverhulme Trust on ‘Producing Change: Gender and Work in Early Modern Europe’. Bringing together Partners from the Universities of Autonoma de Barcelona, Cambridge, Glasgow, Leiden, Rouen and Uppsala, the Network has been designed to seize a timely opportunity to foster collaborative and comparative research on the multi-lateral character of both women and men’s work; to reconceptualise economic activity; and to reassess the dynamics of economic change.

CfP: Unwed motherhood in 18th- and 19th-century history

Unwed motherhood in 18^th– and 19^th-century history.

Contextualizing pauper and female agency.

CFP for a panel at the European Social Science History Conference, Belfast, 4-7 April, 2018

Organisers: Griet Vermeesch (VUB-Free University of Brussels) and Ariadne Schmidt (Leiden University)

This session deals with the ‘pauper agency’ and ‘gender agency’ of single mothers as a particular lower social group whose experiences, prospects and constrains were decisively shaped by the changing economic, political and social contexts of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In that period, illegitimacy rates dramatically rose from 1 or 2 percent in 1750 to 5 per cent around 1800 to levels of 10 and 20 percent by the mid-nineteenth century. These rising rates and the associated economic, political and social fields of tension link up with profound transformations in European history as a whole, and have for good reason unceasingly captivated historians ever since the 1970’s. 

New Publication: New Perspectives on European Women’s Legal History

This new addition to the  Routledge Research in Gender and History series will be of interest to many of our readers. Arranged in three parts, focusing on gender and family law, women in the legal professions and transnational and international intersections, it offers broad geographical and thematic coverage for a comparative perspective on women’s legal history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:

New Perspectives on European Women’s Legal History, (Routledge, 2017)

This book integrates women’s history and legal studies within the broader context of modern European history in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Sixteen contributions from fourteen countries explore the ways in which the law contributes to the social construction of gender. They analyze questions of family law and international law and highlight the politics of gender in the legal professions in a variety of historical, social and national settings, including Eastern, Southern, Western, Northern and Central Europe. Focusing on different legal cultures, they show us the similarities and differences in the ways the law has shaped the contours of women and men’s lives in powerful ways. They also show how women have used legal knowledge to struggle for their equal rights on the national and transnational level. The chapters address the interconnectedness of the history of feminism, legislative reforms, and women’s citizenship, and build a foundation for a comparative vision of women’s legal history in modern Europe.

Call for Papers: ESSHC panel on Formal and Informal Networks of Migrant Women and Men

CFP for a panel at the European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC)

Belfast, 4-7 April 2018   

Formal and informal networks of migrant women and men in settlement process

(14th-19th centuries)

Organiser: Beatrice Zucca Micheletto, GRHIS – University of Rouen (France)

This panel aims to study settlement patterns of migrants, according to a gendered approach. Since the pioneering work by Morokvasic (1984) research has shown that women participated in migrations not only as followers of their husbands, fathers or brothers but also as independent actors. At the same time, a new challenge came from the recent Italian historiography: according to some scholars (Quaderni Storici 2001; Arru, Ramella 2003; Arru, Caglioti, Ramella 2008) most of the works on the topic, influenced by the notion of “migratory chain”, took into account exclusively migrants who, since they arrival, were inserted in national or regional networks, with the consequence that their alleged “new” social network was composed almost exclusively by compatriots. On the contrary, these Italian scholars pointed out the importance of individual migration paths, and studied primarily the social relationships that people were able to build up in the new context, rather than emphasise the pre-existent national or regional ties. 

Call for Papers: Apprenticeship, Work and Creation in Early Modern Europe

European Labour History Network Conference, Paris 2-4 November 2017

CFP: Apprenticeship, work and creation in early modern Europe 

Coordinators: Anna Bellavitis (Université de Rouen Normandie-GRHIS / IUF), Valentina Sapienza (Université de Lille 3-IRHIS)

[Aller à la version française]

The education of new generations and the transmission of knowledge and skills from one generation to another is of course the fundament of any society, at any time. Recent historical researches have underlined the complexity of apprenticeship in early modern Europe and also its numerous varieties: apprentices could learn at home, with their parents and relatives, with the master or mistress and his/her family, or in charitable institutions. The topic of apprenticeship is, by its own nature, transversal and needs multidisciplinary analysis. Labour history, history of the techniques, of innovation and artistic creation, history of education and gender and family history are some of the approaches that can be used for a comprehensive study of apprenticeship in early modern Europe.

Some questions that can guide our analysis:

– Apprenticeship and guilds: is it a necessary link?

– Places of apprenticeship: family home, the master’s – or mistress’ – house and workshop, charitable institutions?

– Which knowledge and skills were transmitted to apprentices?

– What was the relation between apprenticeship and innovation?

– What kind of relations could exist – or had to exist – between masters, mistresses and apprentices?

– Was apprenticeship a work relation or a mode of education?

– Who could have access to apprenticeship?

– What happened to apprentices after the end of the apprenticeship period?

– What was the role of apprenticeship in the general economic evolution of early modern Europe and in the « little divergence » ?

If you are interested by these topics, please send an abstract (max 300 words) before March 31 ^st 2017 to anna.bellavitis@univ-rouen.fr and to valentina.sapienza@univ-lille3.fr

 

Call for applications: Postgraduate Workshop on Apprenticeship and Transmission of Knowledge

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

X Seminar of Ph.D. Studies on The sources for European Economic History (13^th-18^th centuries)

APPRENTICESHIPS AND TRANSMISSIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

Arezzo – Fraternita dei Laici

3-7 July 2017




The Universities of Lille (IRHiS Lab) and Rouen (GRHIS Lab), in collaboration with ANR, IUF, Grand Réseau de Recherche-CSN, Université Paris-7 «Denis Diderot», Institut d’histoire moderne et contemporaine (CNRS-ENS-Université Paris-1), Fraternita dei Laici of Arezzo and the University of Siena (DSFUCI of Arezzo) offer 15 scholarships to young scholars – Masters 2, Ph.D. students, post-doc from within the European Community – dealing with the following research themes : apprenticeships, transmissions of knowledge, their connections with labour market and guilds in pre-industrial  Europe. The scholarships will cover expenses for food and accommodation.

This call for applications is also available in French (appel-arezzo-2017) and in Spanish (bando-arezzo-2017).

Over the span of five working days, the X session of the Doctoral Seminar of Arezzo will investigate “Apprenticeships and transmissions of knowledge in Europe (13^th-18^th centuries)”. Starting from this intentionally broad cover-title, this theme will be investigated in particular structures and attitudes of organisations connected with workers’ training and the transmissions of practical knowledge and know-how within the multiple sectors of European economy (including the areas of artistic production) during the Low Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Matters such as the importance of family and social networks, the role of women in transmitting practical skills and, more generally, the multiple links between apprenticeship, talent and artistic creation will also be investigated.