Graduate Conference

October 31, 2009
Department of History and Religious Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

Recent scholarship in the social sciences and humanities has brought new interest to the study of the body in its anatomical, representational, and abstract forms. The body unifies us as humans, but also serves as the locus and guarantor of difference. Deeply personal, the body stands as a site of edical/scientific, juridical, and political inquiry, intervention, and discipline. The meanings of the body – focused and enhanced by ritual or adornment – resonate far beyond the corporeal self, grounding group as well as individual identity.

Attempts to navigate, manage, and make use of the body’s meanings have given rise to a vocabulary of boundary and limit, which encloses, excludes, and divides, in which the body stands as representative of household, community, nation, or state. Although translated by iscursive and technological means into material reality, no boundary proves impermeable, and the politics of the body, turned to new ends, again opens space for contention, negotiation, and dissent.

The multivalent intersection of the corporeal and metaphorical body troubles existing narratives, and calls upon scholars to think beyond established disciplinary and professional boundaries. Continue reading →

‚The Business History of Everything‘

Athens, Georgia, 25-27 March 2010

Business history for many years was primarily associated with the study of firms and formal business institutions. Recently its scope has widened drastically to include a far greater diversity of economic institutions and practices. It is now widely accepted that Business History is not just about the history of businesses. One of the driving ideas behind the foundation of the BHC journal Enterprise & Society (reflected in the choice of name) was that business historians now had to grapple with much more fluid ideas of what ‚business‘ was and draw on a new range of concepts and approaches to deal with this. There are in fact a very wide range of human enterprises that can usefully be conceptualized as ‚businesses‘ (the organization of production and services for use and gain) and ‚business history‘ provides approaches and methodologies for the historical analysis of economic and social institutions that can be applied across a huge range of fields.

Work that has been primarily conceptualized in different scholarly discourses can be examined (sometimes against the grain) from a ‚business history‘ perspective often with interesting or provocative implications. Just a few examples discussed in Enterprise & Society in the last few years include:

• the marketplace of Christianity;
• the culture and commerce of chewing gum; Continue reading →