The conference ‘Moralizing Capitalism’ will address the following questions:
What actually are moral sentiments, and how did they change over time? What is to be understood by ‘capitalist morality’ and what role do moral beliefs play for the consolidation of capitalism? How did moral sentiments move from the local to the national and transnational and how were diverse territorial scales interconnected with different ideological commitments? What are its specific connections with capitalism? To what extent did social movements opposed to capitalism establish an independent moral economy? How can we describe the motives of bankers and other agents of the financial world? Is there a habitus of the ‘rich’? What is the cultural historical meaning of money?
Overall, we are interested in analysing the interconnection between moral sentiments and capitalism on the level of historical agents, discourses and practices. Hence the organizers of the conference particularly welcome abstracts of papers which focus on the following topics:
- Moral Sentiments and anti-capitalist movements
- The connection between capitalism and humanitarianism in the 20th century
- Capitalism and the idea of moral improvement (e.g. in Marx’ writing)
- Capitalism and moral sentiments (bankers, industrialists etc.)
- Religious responses to the rise of capitalism (e.g. Critique of Capitalism in Protestant and Catholic writing and thinking)
- Cultural Interpretations of Money and Money-making
- Wealth and the Habitus of the Rich
Keynote speakers who have expressed an interest to attend the conference include Jürgen Kocka (Rework, HU Berlin), Bertrand Taithe (University of Manchester) and Andrew Thompson (University of Exeter).
Transportation and accommodation will be covered provided that funding can be secured for the conference.
Proposals of papers (1 page) and a CV (half a page) should be sent by
May 15th 2015 to:
Niko Pankop (Research Assistant ‘Globale Wissenskulturen’)
KWI Essen
Goethestraße 31
45128 Essen
Tel.: 0201-7204-258
niko.pankop@kwi-nrw.de
For enquiries please contact:
PD Alexandra Przyrembel
alexandra.przyrembel@kwi-nrw.de
Prof. Dr. Stefan Berger
stefan.berger@rub.de