New OrleansThe 18th- & 19th-Century Studies Network, the Graduate Committee on the Arts & Humanities, The Center for Western Civilization, Thought & Policy, The Department of English, The Department of History, Special Collections, Archives & Preservation, The Center for the Study of Origins, The Center for British & Irish Studies present the "International conference: New Orleans, Global City (1718 – 2018):​ The Long Shadow of John Law and the Mississippi Company" on April 26-27, 2018 in the Center for British and Irish Studies, Norlin Library. 

Thursday, April 26
2 -5 p.m.: Exhibit in Norlin Library’s Special Collections & Archives (Room N345)
5-5:30 p.m.: Reception
5:30 p.m.: Keynote Address by Joseph Roach, Sterling Professor of Theater and English, Yale University, “‘Dreams Are Spoken Here’: Counter-Intuitive Economies and the Founding of New Orleans”

Friday, April 27

Session 1: 9 – 10:30 a.m. 
Chair: Maria Windell

Inger Leemans, Cultural History, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, “All Profit, No Loss in Wondrous Mississippi Land: The Development of a Global Economics of Desire around 1700”

D'Maris Coffman, Economics & Finance, University College London, “Mercantilism after the Bourbon Succession: Later Editions of Le Parfait Négociant and the Construction of the Eighteenth-Century French Empire”

Matthew Gerber, History, University of Colorado Boulder, “Racializing French Slave Law: How the Edict of March 1685 Became the ‘Black Code of Louisiana’”

Break:10:30 – 11 a.m.

Session 2: 11 – 12 p.m.
Chair: Masano Yamashita

Gordon Sayre, English, University of Oregon, “Jean-Bernard Bossu and the Tall Tales of Colonial Louisiana Promotional Tracts”

Florence Magnot-Ogilvy, French, Université de Rennes 2, “Staging Commercial Encounters between Europeans and Native Americans: On the Evolution of a Philosophical Topos after the Mississippi Bubble"

Lunch break in Hellems 115: 12-1:30 p.m.

Conference Exhibit, Norlin Library’s Special Collections & Archives in N345: 1-5 p.m.

​Session 3: 2 – 3:30 p.m.
Chair: Teresa Toulouse

Peter Brigham Dedek, History & Design, Texas State University, “Mud to Marble: The Development of New Orleans Cemeteries, 1718-1820”

Jennifer Tsien, French, University of Virginia, “How to Get Rich in Louisiana: Physiocrats against Imperial Policy”

Soizic Croguennec, Modern History, Université de Guyane, “New Orleans during the Spanish Interregnum (1763-1803), A City at the Crossroads of Empires: Local Debt, Social Relations and Global Projection”

Break: 3:30-4 p.m.

Session 4: 4-5 p.m.
Chair: Paul Youngquist

Daniel Usner, History, Vanderbilt University, “From Calumet to Raquette: American Indian Performance on the New Orleans Stage”

Marilyn Brown, Art History, University of Colorado Boulder, “Degas and New Orleans Revisited: Cotton and Global Capitalism”

Roundtable: 5-5:30 p.m.
Chair: Catherine Labio

For more information, go to 1819 Network.


Results

The conference “New Orleans, Global City (1718 – 2018): The Long Shadow of John Law and the Mississippi Bubble,” which was held on April 26 – 27, 2018 in the Center for British & Irish Studies was the inaugural conference of the 18th- & 19th-Century Studies Network, launched at CU Boulder in fall 2016. 

Meant to coincide with the foundation of New Orleans in 1718 by the Compagnie des Indes (aka the Mississippi Company), this interdisciplinary conference focused on the impact of Law’s System, the reorganization of the French economy by the Scot John Law from 1715 to 1720, on the cultures, economies, and environments of New Orleans and surrounding areas. In particular, speakers considered the direct and indirect impact of French, English, Dutch, and Spanish joint-stock companies and state-sponsored monopolies on the economies, cultures, and ecologies of New Orleans and the Mississippi River Delta. They also brought into dialogue indigenous, European, and American economic and cultural studies and drew on archival, textual, and visual documents and objects. 15 out of 70 attendees were graduate and undergraduate students.


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