The interdisciplinary conference “Money – Power – Emotions. Wealth in historical perspective”, takes place on the 25th and 26th of September 2013 at the German Historical Institute in Rome. It aims to contribute to the current national and international debates on the relation between economic and emotional actions as well as the implications of unequal property distribution.
From the program it appears that the immediate background have been the widely felt popular opinion that the present economic crisis revealed an unprecedented greed amongst the rich and mighty. This has been publicly voiced by the disposed and homeless faced with the fact of the continued bonuses, which have been paid out to what is generally considered to have been the instigators of the crisis – the bankers. But it has also been voiced in a series of popular uprisings in for instance Greece and Spain, turned against the politicians from Northern Europe and their enforcement of a politics of austerity.
For several years historical research has focused upon the systematic analysis of emotions concerned with the creation, accumulation, preservation and dispersal of material wealth. Pioneering studies have especially honed in on greed (avaricia) as a mortal sin and its present metamorphosis into a beneficial emotion in the world of international economics and in the management of large banks and global companies. However, a more nuanced research agenda is currently underway exploring the distribution, nature and importance of private wealth in different historical settings through time and how the corresponding emotions have been described and interpreted as well as the role these emotions played as guiding principles for the actions in former times or far-away places.
The key tenet is that emotions may be shaped culturally and historically, but also that they possess a universal physical core. They are felt. Emotions are thus anchored in the “real world”; but are also part in the social construction of this “reality”. This is the background for the development of the different ethical and moral maxims, which in different societies have aimed to tame individual emotions so that everyday coexistence becomes possible.
First step in this new research program is a conference in Rome were an international group of scholars meet to discuss the reality and the emotional feelings attached to such diverse subjects as not only greed but also the power of wealth and the feelings of injustice in a comparative historical anthropological and philosophical perspective.
The conference is organized in four different sessions, focusing on the rational rich people, the emotional poor people, the values and feelings through the ages and the feelings of (in)justice. Topics range from “Greed vs. Envy. The resentment against rich people in the age of Dante” to “Making money as a shoemaker: the contingency of values in fifteenth-century Florence” and “Through the emotional glasses: European views on splendor and misery in pre-modern India”.
Geld – Macht – Emotionen. Reichtum in historischer Perspektive
Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom
Istituto Storico Germanico di Roma
Via Aurelia Antica, 391
I-00165 Roma
Italia
Adjunct to the conference is a blog
Introduces speakers and presenters, unveils the sections and topics of examination and hopes to inspire further thoughts amongst scholars as well as invites the public to exchange ideas. The blog contains abstracts of the papers to be presented at the conference.
List of organisers and participants
The conference is financed by Financed by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung.