Preliminary Programme

Wed 24 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Thu 25 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Fri 26 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14.15
    16.30

Sat 27 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

All days
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Wednesday 24 March 2004 10:45
S-2 ELI02 Social Reproduction of Early Modern Elites
Room T
Network: Elites and forerunners Chair: Anu Lahtinen
Organizers: - Discussant: Jaana Gluschkoff
Markku Kekäläinen : Politeness as an Instrument of Differentiation
I am a doctoral student of general history who is working on cultural, intellectual and urban history of eighteenth-century England. The preliminary title of my dissertation is Urban experience in James Boswell – identity and public life in eighteenth-century London. My paper will deal with distinctions between different modes of ... (Show more)
I am a doctoral student of general history who is working on cultural, intellectual and urban history of eighteenth-century England. The preliminary title of my dissertation is Urban experience in James Boswell – identity and public life in eighteenth-century London. My paper will deal with distinctions between different modes of the urban culture of politeness. The crucial point is the relationship between inner and outer self; how this relationship was seen in different interpretations of urban politeness: was the emphasis on the inner moral qualities or on the theatrical art of pleasing? And how did the different forms of politeness work as an instrument of social and cultural differentiation on the urban scenes of polite sociability? (Show less)

Jessica Parland-Von Essen : The Education of the Daughters of the Nobility in the Northern Parts of Europe by the End of the 18th Century
While the boys were given an education consisting of the classical humanistic and military training, the girls were more freely educated. Still, their education was of crucial importance to the continuity of the influence of the elite. The era of the revolutions had shaken the European society to its very ... (Show more)
While the boys were given an education consisting of the classical humanistic and military training, the girls were more freely educated. Still, their education was of crucial importance to the continuity of the influence of the elite. The era of the revolutions had shaken the European society to its very foundations, which led to an extremely rigid culture among the nobility. The importance of the education thus became even more important, partly because of the unstable political situation, partly because of the changes the Enlightenment had caused in the perception of the human essence. The delicate and ambitious hônnet homme was expected to constantly strive to a greater perfection as a Christian. On the other hand, the great stress given to the aesthetics – the etiquette and the taste – made individual variation of the contents of the education possible.

The source material consists of correspondence, manuscripts and literature regarding the education of some girls of the nobility in Sweden, Eutin, Moscow and St. Petersburg in the late 18th century. The approach to the material is semiotic, mostly following the Moscow-Tartu school of cultural semiotics. (Show less)

Fredrik Thisner : Redistribution and social reproduction
My paper for the conference in Berlin, March 2004, is intended to be a presentation of my ongoing PhD-project and some key concepts within it. The project focuses on the role of the military establishment in the social reproduction of the upper stratas of Swedish (thereby also including roughly present-day ... (Show more)
My paper for the conference in Berlin, March 2004, is intended to be a presentation of my ongoing PhD-project and some key concepts within it. The project focuses on the role of the military establishment in the social reproduction of the upper stratas of Swedish (thereby also including roughly present-day Finland) and Danish society during the period 1730-1800.
The main focus of previous research done on early modern military history with ambitions bordering to social history, has quite often put emphasis on questions like ”what role did different social groups play within the military establishment?” ”How did the military as a corporation / guild work? And: ”How did the early modern state-formation - often stressing the role of warfare and the formation of a standing army and navy - affect society?”
My thesis, in relation to the above mentioned ambitions, focuses instead upon what the military could do for the (sometimes different) social groups and their social reproduction that were involved in the officers corporations, rather than asking what different groups did for the military and their country. The project in its approach, therefore has similarities with present-day research done on the function of elite schools as reproductive tools of the upper classes in modern European and American society.
Two concepts are essential for the understanding of the overall outline of the project and thereby also the understanding of the conditions of upper strata early modern life, namely the concept of redistribution and the quite broad concept social reproduction. These two concepts are on an abstract theoretical level two rather separate ones. In the actual early-modern life of the upper stratas, however, they were heavily intertwined.
The idea of comparing Denmark and Sweden in this aspect is motivated by the fact that the military in both countries had a rather important role in society in general and in the redistributive system in particular. There are however also differences between the two countries, that makes a comparison favourable. Denmark was during the whole period an absolute state in a political sense, which is not true for Sweden (until the period 1772-1809). Another difference is how the officers were paid – mostly in kind in Sweden, and in cash in Denmark. A third difference is the groups involved in the two countries military establishments. In Sweden the nobility held a rather dominant position. In Denmark, on the other hand the noble influence was, as a part of Danish absolute politics, curtailed. This means, in short, that the groups involved and the possibilities of using the military, as an arena of social reproduction were quite different.
The conference-paper will be written in an English and a german version. (Show less)



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