The Porcelain Industry Confronts the Vulgar Question of Money
Suzanne Marchand, Louisiana State University
March 2, 2021 · 4:30 pm—6:00 pm · Zoom
Program in European Cultural Studies; Eberhard L. Faber 1915 Memorial Fund in the Humanities Council
Faber Lecture: “The Porcelain Industry Confronts the Vulgar Question of Money: Towards a New Prehistory of Industrialization in the German States, 1780-1840”
In the mid-eighteenth century, numerous German princes established porcelain manufactories, most importantly for the purposes of prestige, and to prevent the enrichment of Dutch merchants, East Asian producers, and fellow princes. By the 1780s, however, these manufactories’ calls on the princely purse become problematic as rulers contemplated other means to enrich their domains and officials tightened budgetary screws.
The Faber Lecture seeks to illuminate aspects of the understudied era we commonly call ‘proto-industrialization’ by examining the making and selling of semi-luxurious commodities to show how much late absolutist fiscal and chemical discipline contributed to the opening of a new world of ‘bourgeois’ production and consumption.
Registration is required: http://bit.ly/2021march2
Sponsored by the Program in European Cultural Studies, Princeton University. Supported by the Eberhard L. Faber 1915 Memorial Fund in the Humanities Council.
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