Sociability in Britain and its Empire, c.1600-c.1850 workshop

1.45pm - 6.20pm, Friday, 09 March 2018
Location: IAS seminar room, Milburn House, University of Warwick

This half-day workshop will explore sociability in Britain across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, primarily in Britain but a keynote paper by Valérie Capdeville will also explore this in an imperial dimension. Papers will consider both elite and popular ideals and practices, and seek to explore how these differed, and what changed over time. Discussion will also focus on tensions and ambiguities within conventions of sociability or moments when the latter dissolve completely under pressure of disagreement, and also the relationship between sociability and ‘things’.

PROGRAMME

1.45pm arrivals, tea and coffee
2pm Plenary session:

Dr Valérie Capdeville (Paris 13): 'The Colonial Destiny of Gentlemen’s Clubs in British America (1720-1770)'
3pm Popular sociability:

Prof. Beat Kümin (Warwick) 'Sociability in the early modern public house'

Prof. Bernard Capp (Warwick) ‘Home and street: sociability in 17th century England’
4pm tea break
4.20pm Tensions and ambiguities:

Dr Kate Davison (Sheffield) ' ''A cheerful glass': wit and sociability in eighteenth-century England'

Dr Naomi Pullin (Cambridge) 'Female Sociability and Anti-Sociability in Eighteenth-Century Britain’
5.20pm Sociability and things:

Dr Larry Klein (Cambridge) 'Things, Sociability and Virtue'

Dr Gena Zuroski (McMaster) 'De Quincey's Uncanny Tea Things'

6.20pm end

6.30 supper

Chairs: Professor Mark Knights (Warwick), Dr Tina Lupton (Warwick)

REGISTRATION

There are 26 places available. Registration is essential. There is a small charge of £10 to cover costs. The workshop is free for students and Early Career Fellows who are unfunded.

Registration form (paid)

Registration form (free)

engraving of seventeenth century coffee house

This event is part-funded by the HRC