RHN 58/2025 | Call
Organisers: Daniel Menning (Universität Tübingen) and Jon Stobart (Manchester Metropolitan University)
16 – 18 March 2026, Tübingen, Germany
Deadline for Submissions: 15 June 2025
Call for Papers:
Rural Retailing and Global Goods in Early Modern Europe
Changes in retailing have been accepted as a key component of the emergence of modern consumer societies. Yet, the history of the transformation of retailing between 1600 and 1850 has been predominantly written as one of either urban shops or peddlers, mostly neglecting the existence and development of village shopkeepers as well as the interplay between the different actors and forms in retailing which also included weekly markets or more occasional fairs. Moreover, much of the research on early modern retailing has focused on Britain, the Dutch Republic and the Southern Netherlands. The number of studies on other European regions is very limited, whilst robust international comparisons are practically non-existent. In addition, the integration of new global goods into everyday life has been closely connected with an urban public sphere, with imperialism and with contemporaries’ interpretations of their Empires. These ideas require critical appraisal and leave unanswered how such goods were accessed and consumed in the countryside, and interpreted by people in countries without colonies.
This conference seeks contributions that investigate the following topics with respect to rural shops and shopkeepers:
- quantitative development and regional dispersion, including gender and the role of secondary occupations of retailers
- goods sold, especially new colonial goods and their relationship to more traditional and/or European goods
- sales techniques such as providing credit, advertising, and the composition of store interiors
- customer and supply networks
- the interplay between different kinds of retailing (urban and rural shops, peddlers, fairs) in relation to rural consumers
- the meaning/advertisement of global goods to rural consumers
The conference will take place at the University of Tübingen, Germany from 16 to 18 March 2026. Limited funding for travelling expenses and accommodation is available to presenters at the conference.
We particularly encourage early career researchers to apply and intend to publish valuable contributions to the conference afterwards!
Applications should consist of a CV and an abstract for a paper of approximately 300 words. They should be send to daniel.menning@uni-tuebingen.de and j.stobart@mmu.ac.uk by 15 June 2025.
Contact
daniel.menning@uni-tuebingen.de
j.stobart@mmu.ac.uk
Further Information can be found here.
Source: H-Soz-Kult