Wednesday / Mercredi, 29.07.2015
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
WEDNESDAY / MERCREDI, 29.07.2015 KN308 (09:00 – 10:30, Room: M1-12: Oxford: Van Der Goot Building) Keynote 4: Who was the Enlightenment? Social Networks and Digital Humanities Keynote Speaker: Dan Edelstein S094 (09:00 - 10:30, Room: M1-08: Leuven: Van Der Goot Building) Ireland Chair: Keith Baker Szymanska-Lewoszewska, Marta: Berkeley’s Irish Patriotism in 1730s and 1750s Dr. William Markham, Bishop of Chester has suggested in the inscription on George Berkeley’s (1685- 1753) monument that the philosopher should be an important figure for Christians and patriots. However, rarely is he mentioned in the context of the 18th century Irish patriotism. Being half English and half Irish by descent and a member of the Ascendancy, Berkeley struggled in defining his identity while he was a dean of Cloyne. My aim in this paper is to refer to the complex meaning of his Irish patriotism and the change it underwent as it was presented mainly in the early (published in 1730s) and late (published in 1750s) editions of his treatise The Querist. It belongs to the tradition of writings in Irish political economy represented e.g. by the early members of the Royal Dublin Society. The Anglican bishop revealed his interest in the situation in Ireland there and he included his ideas of improving its economy and the well-being of its inhabitants. Together with Berkeley's practices of healing parishioners in Cloyne with the help of tar water, his ideas presented in The Querist may have earned him a reputation of a good bishop and an Irish patriot. What does it mean however, in the context of a country where people varied in terms of culture, religion, or political allegiance? In the course of the paper I will provide an in-depth examination of his vision of Ireland and his understanding of the well- being of its society. I will focus on Berkeley’s views on Catholics as well as the political dependence of Ireland on Great Britain. My analysis will be based on The Querist and other writings by Berkeley from the period of 1734-1753. Wood, James: Closing Markets: William Molyneux and the Failure of "The Case of Ireland" In 1698, the Irish philosopher and politician William Molyneux published "The Case of Ireland", a pamphlet that argued for Ireland's legislative independence from England. In my paper I set the pamphlet in the context of the intellectual network in which Molyneux participated, which included William King, Narcissus Marsh, and John Locke. I argue that Molyneux attempted to legitimize his political pamphlet within his own intellectual circle by appealing to the rational and egalitarian principles that were supposed to guide the international Republic of Letters. In my paper I document the failure of Molyneux's effort to create a community of consensus around his political pamphlet by investigating letters written by, to, and about Molyneux, as well as the presentation copies of "The Case of Ireland" that he sent to his friends. Rather than putting his ideas into circulation, however, Molyneux encountered a closed market for his arguments. King and Locke both criticized Molyneux in letters and Marsh wrote a satirical poem about Molyneux in his own copy of "The Case of Ireland". The intellectual principles to which the Republic of Letters officially subscribed could not be translated into the political realm in the case of Molyneux's pamphlet. Although "The Case of Ireland" would become highly 14th International Congress for Eighteenth-Century Studies Rotterdam, July 27 – 31, 2015 influential on later agitators for Irish legislative independence, the failure of Molyneux to gain a hearing for his ideas within his own intellectual network is one of the most striking aspects of the pamphlet's contemporary reception. Dennehy, Coleman: Irish appellate cases between in the Dublin and Westminster parliaments This paper will study the relationship between the Irish parliament and the English parliament in the early decades of the long eighteenth century through the prism of appellate law. Although the process began decades earlier, cases increased exponentially towards the end of the seventeenth century and into the early eighteenth, virtually all regarding disputes over the ownership of land. Cases relating to Ireland usually moved through the courts there as normal. Appealed cases would move up to the house of lords in Dublin, and from there if the losing party was sufficiently wealthy and hopeful, the case could be appealed to the parliament in Westminster. By 1720, the Westminster parliament had regularised the constitutional situation by confirming total authority over the Irish parliament to both legislate and also formalized its position as supreme court over the kingdom of Ireland with the English lords sitting in final judgement over Irish cases. The paper will seek to under the practical elements of the project, with some thoughts on procedures, results, costs, legal personalities, and the time it took to move these cases through the system. This will in effect be a preliminary progress report on an IRC funded project on the topic. S095 (09:00 - 10:30, Room: M1-09: Bergen: Van Der Goot Building) Paper Practices: Maps, Archives, and Ledgers Chair: Greg Clingham De Coene, Karen: Who’s the cartographer? Maps and mobility of Joseph de Ferraris Since a few decades historical cartographical studies started to emphasize the social and spatial context of the map maker. The fact that the so-called “cartographer” could fulfill different roles in map production, is less discussed. Whom we now consider a cartographer, may have been entitled by his contemporaries as cosmographer, land surveyor, designer, printer, military man or manager. If any map maker would actually have designed, drawn, or printed a map is a disputable fact. The life and pursuits of the Austrian general Joseph de Ferraris (1726-1814) shows in particular the complex role of the eighteenth century cartographer. Under Ferraris ’s guidance the artillery corps of the Austrian Netherlands carried out a mapping project of the territory between 1770 and 1777. The resulting large scale map is considered a milestone in the history of Belgian cartography. We will use Ferraris ‘s maps and private correspondence to explain his cartographic innovations as regards the eighteenth century social, cultural and spatial context. Eighteenth century cartographic theories about maps, projection and land surveying as discussed in Diderot ’s Encyclopédie were indeed not easily put in practice. Good ideas –not necessarily one’s own- were in need of an excellent team, financial aids, intense networking, high mobility and ... a devoted wife to accomplish a mapping project. 14th International Congress for Eighteenth-Century Studies Rotterdam, July 27 – 31, 2015 McDonough, Katherine: Nature on Paper: Public Works Archives and the Rural Environment. While historians have celebrated the cultural impact of the highway construction boom in eighteenth- century France, the roads themselves were actually technological dinosaurs. Examining a cross-section of a historic road, it is challenging to differentiate between a Roman-era road and an 18th century one given their similar designs and materials. Much more innovative were the documentary practices established to manage public works. Provincial archives swelled with documents attesting to inspections, labor conflicts, and projected works. These archives were tools for provincial administrators to redefine their institution’s relationship to territorial development. In Brittany, for example, the sustained effort to create an archive for each road being built or maintained helped the Estates to establish authority over public works and eventually win power over this part of provincial administration from the royal intendant. The carefully curated archive was a political tool that the intendant had failed to see as an important part of public works administration. The Estates’ archive used paperwork in innovative ways to document the roadside environment, particularly as administrators struggled to build roads according to approved plans imitating the classical style, with wide, cleared shoulders and drainage areas. Conflict with communities over these road designs led the Estates to soften their regulations about tree clearing and to develop inventories of “useful” trees lining highways. Efforts to resolve conflicts with communities contributing labor for highway maintenance led to new ways of representing the natural environment as part of the provincial landscape: nature became something to work with instead of against. Administrators began to write about the roadscape as a productive, multipurpose area. In this presentation I examine this major shift in Breton public works policy. I connect these governance practices for documenting the increasingly intertwined natural and built environments to a new history of Old Regime natural resource politics S096(I) (09:00 - 10:30, Room: M1-16: Heidelberg: Van Der Goot Building) Understanding Debt and Credit in Eighteenth-Century Europe I – Elites (I) Organizer / Chair: Johanna Ilmakunnas, Jarkko Keskinen Stobart, Jon: Aristocratic credit: book debts, shopkeepers and elite consumers in eighteenth-century England The aristocracy is often seen as having a particular relationship with the cultures and practices of credit. For Fontaine (2014), they were central to a moral economy in which credit comprised a system of social obligations; a culture which ran counter to urban capitalism where credit was central to a market economy. But of course aristocrats, like all consumers, had to enter the market to obtain goods and were thus enmeshed in the world of commercial credit. Indeed, the level of their consumption meant that they were more exposed than most and frequently carried a heavy burden of debt to shopkeepers and tradesmen. We know little about these credit arrangements: how they operated as part of the micro-economy of the aristocratic household or the business world of the shopkeeper. This paper attempts to fill this lacuna and thus revise our understanding of aristocratic use of commercial credit in the eighteenth century.