JOB ALERT: Two 4.5 year postdoctoral positions to work on my Wellcome-funded project 'Conserving Global Health: Biodiversity Protection and the Prehistory of Planetary Health'. Please share widely!
CLOSING DATE: 23 April (the date on Jobs.ac.uk is apparently incorrect)
L'animal est une invention du Moyen Age, mais après un très long accouchement ce livre nait aujourd'hui en librairie!
Je pense aujourd'hui à toutes celles et ceux qui l'on rendu possible @crh.ehess.fr @ehess.fr
👇rdv
le 2/04 à l'Atelier, rue jourdain, Paris
le 28/04 à l'Oeil Cacodylate, Lyon
Men studying a dragon
ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIP IN HISTORY OF SCIENCE
My home department at Uppsala University is advertising an endowed professorship in the history of science. This is the best position in the field in Sweden, and probably in all of Scandinavia. Apply before 30 April 2026. www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...
It was such a pleasure to interview Mélanie Lamotte about her new book, "By Flesh & Toil". Historians of early modern empire, France, gender, sex, race and labour will find so much food for thought here – a truly game-changing book for our understanding of the early French empire! 🗃️
👋
Delighted to announce the launch of a new seminar - Race and the Early Modern - in collaboration with @folger.edu.
A monthly, transatlantic, online seminar for research on race, racialisation, and racemaking across #earlymodern Studies.
Sign up to attend!
kingsearlymodern.co.uk/race-and-the...
JOB
Assistant Professor in the History of Knowledge Pre-1400,
University of Cambridge
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...
It was apparently left by a retired professor. It’s been taken care of by the department and I hope it will end up in the university library. So don’t bother pulling a furniture lift up to my office window, if anybody had that idea.
When you randomly find a first edition of Mirabeau’s L’ami des hommes in an open bookshelf with leftover books in the corridor of your department…
“what happens if we also reconnect with the mule? What can mules teach us about the black history of land and violence in the United States?”
A terrific piece of #envhist on mules, labor, and how “empire doesn’t always win” from @roguechieftan.bsky.social
www.sciencehistory.org/stories/maga...
🚨 #OpenAccess 🚨
This article is also available in #English
👇
doi.org/10.1017/ahss...
#mercantilism #diplomacy #animals #skystorians
Very very happy to announce that the @jhokjournal.bsky.social special issue "Knowledge and Power: Projecting the Modern World," edited by Vera Keller, Kely Whitmer, and me, is starting to be published: the first three articles are here, the rest to follow.
journalhistoryknowledge.org/Knowledge_an...
Merci Vincent !
Thank you so much Fredrik!
Excellent article from @jamborg.bsky.social about "genetic" mercantilism. Highly recommended
Really honored to be part of this issue! In my article, I study the (failed) attempts to cultivate wheat in Hispaniola during the 16th century. While the West Indies are mostly known for the sugar plantations that made them so important for later colonial empires...
Gravure des moutons mérinos devant la bergerie nationale de Rambouillet (Archives nationales)
'Mercantilisme animal. Contrebande de #races animales, diplomatie du mouton et #géopolitique du capital génétique dans la France du xviiie siècle'
par @jamborg.bsky.social (Uppsala)
👉 dx.doi.org/10.1017/ahss...
#skystorians #race #climate #merinos 🐑
« Capitalisme, démocratie, colonialisme, Europe, comment hérite-t-on du passé ? »
Dialogue « Le présent de l’histoire » entre Antoine Lilti et moi
À 11h30 le samedi 18 octobre aux Franciscaines de Deauville à l’occasion des 150 ans de Flammarion
Combining perspectives from economic, agricultural, political, and cultural history with history of science, this article uses the concept of animal mercantilism to open up the geopolitical stakes inherent in understandings of animals, race, and climate.
Note from the breeder Guerrier – including a wool sample demonstrating the high quality of a flock of sheep recently smuggled into France from Lincolnshire – sent to the French intendant of finances, Trudaine de Montigny, who supported several similar projects, around 1770. Archives nationales, F/10/515-516.
The French government was however determined to overcome their country’s weak wool production. Collaborating with breeders, smugglers, diplomats and naturalists, state officials sought ways to import breeds – often through illicit means – that could improve their national sheep population.
”All Persons concerned in Exporting of live Sheep or Lambs, on Conviction are liable to One Year’s Imprisonment, and at the End thereof to have their left Hand cut off, and nailed up in the openest Part of the Market nearest the Place where the Offence is committed. And for the second Offence are adjudged Felons, and to suffer Death as in Cases of Felony.” Abstract of several Acts of Parliament, now in force, to prevent the exportation of wool, sheep, &c, 1737
In the early modern period, Britain and Spain were famed for their fine wool production. They made sure to protect the advantage that their superior breeds gave them by totally banning the exportation of live sheep.
Sheep smugglers could face capital punishment in both countries! (See image)
Woollens constituted the most important industrial product in early-modern Europe. While the textile trade and manufacturing industry are well-studied historical topics, the importance of sheep breeding in the political economy of wool is much less known.
Engraving of merinos in front of the Bergerie nationale de Rambouillet. Archives nationales, 20160285-648-649.
This article examines how animal breeds came to be seen as national resources in the early modern period, amidst European imperial competition and changing conceptions of race, breed and climate.
It particularly focuses on how governments protected – and stole – sheep breeds in the 18th century.
📢 New publication!
”Animal Mercantilism: Race Smuggling, Sheep Diplomacy, and the Geopolitics of Genetic Capital in Eighteenth-Century France” in @annales.ehess.fr is now available OA🐑🌍
doi.org/10.1017/ahss...
Of course, I’ll send it right away!
Just stumbled upon this post when I was looking for something else. Have you seen the dissection report by Mertrud, Daubenton and Vicq d’Azyr in the MNHN archives (Ms. 219)? I have it photocopied and would be happy to share if still relevant.
Gravure des moutons mérinos devant la bergerie nationale de Rambouillet (Archives nationales)
”Mercantilisme animal” est désormais disponible sur Cairn. Ce lien donne accès gratuit à l’article jusqu’au 5 octobre :
shs.cairn.info/tap-v3xvdvfr...
@annales.ehess.fr
