International Workshop, 27-28 March 2025

Warwick Venice Centre

CALL for PAPERS

Keywords: Corruption, Material Culture, Artistic culture, Cultural legacies, Early Modern Europe, Modern Europe, Curation.

The interdisciplinary conference addresses the material, literary and visual culture associated with ‘corruption’ (broadly conceived). Relatively little attention has been paid to these dimensions of corrupt practices: to the gifts given as bribes, to the various material, artistic and cultural forms of public displays of corrupt wealth, and to the literary and visual representations of corruption. Nor has there been much debate about how to curate material bought or created with ‘corrupt’ money and how explain it to modern audiences.

This workshop aims to create an interdisciplinary forum for researchers, seeking to bring together historians of all stripes, literary critics, art historians, the heritage sector and others.

We aim to discuss the following questions:

• To what extent did a material culture of corruption (broadly conceived) exist?
• Were there objects, outputs, sites or spaces usually identified – or more prone to be identified– with corrupt practices?
• Did those change over time?
• Did gifting practices trigger unethical behaviour and what gifts counted as bribes?
• How were ‘corrupt’ objects and sites concealed and disguised as ‘legitimate’?
• What was the material legacy of corrupt money, in houses, estates, monuments etc?
• How should such objects and spaces be represented now to the public by heritage organisations?
• How was corruption represented in art and literature?
• What artistic genres and literary forms were deployed?
• What emotions or responses were aroused by them?
• And how did all these cultural objects, sites and legacies differ in imperial as opposed to domestic settings? or how did imperial corruption affect the metropole?
• What power did such cultural manifestations have on reform movements?

We welcome proposals of ca. 500 words (for 20 minute presentations) concerning these topics, to be submitted, along with a short CV, by the end of Thursday 31 October. The submissions should be sent to historyofcorruption@warwick.ac.uk.

It is hoped that the contributions presented during the workshop might be collected for publication and the intention is to hold the conference in Venice, at Warwick’s palazzo on the Grand Canal (Warwick Venice Centre | University of Warwick), though it is possible that the venue might have to be changed to Warwick University’s campus if Venice proves unviable because of numbers. If held in Venice or Warwick, part of the cost of meals and refreshments (which will be subsidised for speakers) will be covered by a registration fee and delegates’ accommodation will also be subsidised (and bookable via Warwick) but delegates will need to organise and pay for their own travel. There will be up to five bursaries for PhD students of £150.

Organising Committee:

Prof Dr Mark J. Knights (University of Warwick)

Dr Ricard Torra-Prat (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

We are grateful for financial sponsorship from the following organisations: