Introductory description

How do we know what to value? How do we distinguish between the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly? This module answers these questions by exploring the material world of the Enlightenment. The period from c. 1650 to 1830 witnessed many new proposals for evaluating the material world, from window-shopping to telescopes. These proposals were part of wider historical processes such as war, consumerism, industrialisation, and the making and remaking of states and empires. To study material evaluation is therefore to study the formation of the modern world. The module covers a wide range of material things, from gold to brandy to horses. We ask how these were judged by men, women, children, slaves, artisans, farmers, bureaucrats, and aristocrats, as well as scientists and engineers. The focus is on Britain and its empire, with several French examples considered as well. We bring these examples to bear on the present, where material evaluation is tied to debates about capitalism, environmentalism, the internet, the humanities, and much else. We bring the material world into the classroom by doing experiments and handling historic objects. We go beyond the classroom as well, holding seminars in a coffeeshop, in a local museum, and elsewhere.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Note: each week focuses on a particular material and a particular context, and asks how that material was evaluated in that context. The exceptions are introduction in week 1 and the conclusion in week 20.

TERM 1:

1.2 The history of knowledge

1.3 The Age of Reason

1.4 Gold and the Atlantic slave trade

1.5 Sugar and the plantation system

1.6 READING WEEK

1.7 Coffee and Orientalism

1.8 Paintings and the public sphere

1.9 Textiles and the consumer revolution

1.10 Horses, races, and pedigrees

TERM 2

2.1 Alcohol and the fiscal-military state

2.2 Muskets and the end of the Old Regime

2.3 Jewellery and the Industrial Revolution

2.4 Cotton and the Industrial Revolution

2.5 Wild card - students to decide topic

2.6 READING WEEK

2.7 Mineral water and the growth of towns

2.8 Air and social reform

2.9 Rocks and the discovery of deep time

2.10 Heaven and the discovery of deep space

TERM 3

3.2 Value in the age of smartphones

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a systematic knowledge and understanding of material evaluation in the Enlightenment
• Critically analyse and evaluate a broad range of primary sources relating to material evaluation in the Enlightenment
• Effectively communicate ideas, and make informed, coherent and persuasive arguments, relating to material evaluation in the Enlightenment
• Critically review and consolidate theoretical, methodological, and historiographical ideas relating to material evaluation in the Enlightenment

Indicative reading list

THEORY AND CONTEMPORARY DEBATES:

Anderson, Victor. Debating Nature's Value: the Concept of 'Natural Capital.’ Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Antal, Ariane Berthoin, Michael Hutter, and David Stark, eds. Moments of Valuation: Exploring Sites of Dissonance. Oxford University Press, 2015.

Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Harvard University Press, 1984.

Clune, Michael W. A Defense of Judgement. Chicago University Press, 2021.

Graeber, David. Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams. New York: Palgrave, 2001.

Helm, Dieter. Natural Capital: Valuing Our Planet. Yale University Press, 2015.

Martínez Alier, Juan. The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation. Northhampton, Massachusetts: Edward Elgar, 2002.

Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 1, 1867.

Mazzucato, Mariana. The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy. UK: Allen Lane, 2018.

Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776.

Vanderbilt, Tom. You May Also Like: Taste in an Age of Endless Choice. Simon and Schuster, 2016.

SECONDARY WORKS:

Alder, Ken. Engineering the Revolution: Arms and Enlightenment in France, 1763-1815. Chicago University Press, 1997.

Ashworth, William J. Customs and Excise: Trade, Production, and Consumption in England, 1640-1845. Oxford University Press, 2003.

Dyer, Serena. Material Lives: Women Makers and Consumer Culture in the 18th Century. Bloomsbury, 2021.

Schaffer, Simon. “Golden Means: Assay Instruments and the Geography of Precision in the Guinea Trade.” In Instruments, Travel and Science: Itineraries of Precision from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. H. Otto Sibum, Marie Noelle Bourguet, and Christian Licoppe. London: Routledge, 2003.

Spary, Emma. Eating the Enlightenment: Food and the Sciences in Paris. University of Chicago Press, 2012.

Raj, Kapil. Relocating Modern Science: Circulation and the Construction of Knowledge in South Asia and Europe, 1650-1900. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Rudwick, Martin J. S. Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Revolution. University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Salmond, Anne. Experiments Across Worlds. Auckland University Press, 2017.

Walls, Laura Dassow. The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Shaping of America. University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Interdisciplinary

Engages with theories of value from economics, sociology and anthropology
Draws on chemistry, physics and environmental science to recreate the material world of the Enlightenment

International

Examines case studies the include parts of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the South Pacific, as well as France, Britain and Germany.

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.