This symposium presents new scholarship by five up and coming scholars doing path-breaking work on what happens to property in times of war and revolution, ranging from the eighteenth century to the twentieth. The papers explore the fate of objects over a wide swath of time and variety of regimes in Europe and North America. Each author will give a brief presentation, followed by commentary and then discussion with the audience.
There are pre-circulated papers, please contact Brandon Schechter (bms12@nyu.edu) for access.
RSVP’s are encouraged and can be sent to bms12@nyu.edu.
Part of the Elihu Rose Lectures in Modern Military History. Provided by the generous support of Dr. Rose. Co-sponsored by the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia
Schedule
KJCC Atrium (53 Washington Square South)
NYU
11:00
Hannah Farber (Columbia – History)
“Sailing on Paper: The Embellished Bill of Lading in the Material Atlantic, 1720-1864”
with commentary by Dael Norwood (SUNY Binghamton – History)
12:00
Anne O’Donnell (NYU – History, Russian and Slavic Studies)
“Old Regime Valuables and New Regime Values”
with commentary by Clara Mattei (The New School – Economics)
1:00 Lunch (please RSVP so that we know how much to order)
2:00
Alice Goff (University of Chicago – History)
“To the Vandals, They Are Stone: The Promises and Perils of the Art Object in the Napoleonic Campaigns”
with commentary by Christopher Wood (NYU - German)
3:00
Brandon Schechter (NYU - History)
“Trophies of War: Red Army Soldiers Confront an Alien World of Goods”
with commentary by Anne Lounsbery (NYU – Russian and Slavic Studies)
4:00
Christopher Casey (NYU - Law)
“Sovereign Commerce: The Peculiar End of the Armed Collection of Sovereign Debt and the Creation of Investor State Dispute Settlement”
with commentary by Brandon Schechter (NYU – History)
5:00 Open Discussion and Summation
Image: 'This is how it happened.' Plate 47 from 'The Disasters of War' (Los Desastres de la Guerra) by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1810, published 1863). Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/361847
