Cultures of Currencies conference
This conference is a collaborative project between Stanford University in Palo Alto, California and Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, Germany.
Upcoming Conference
October 10th –12th, 2019
Zeppelin University
Fallenbrunnen 3,
88045 Friedrichshafen
Germany
Organisation:
Chair Cultural Theorie & Analyses
- Prof Dr Jan Söffner
- Prof Joan Ramon Resina
- Esther Schomacher
Cultures of Currencies Conference
Following the radical reformulation of what is understood as ‘economic behavior’ in the wake of the late Gary Becker’s theories, human beings are understood as constantly calculating creatures, and their cultural and social interactions have, thus, come to be regarded as economic operations. The inherent notions of the theory of “human capital” can, by now, be traced in peoples’ attitudes towards their own lives and actions: metaphors such as ‘investing’ in relationships, and hoping to get an appropriate ‘return’, and describing people, environments, or institutions that do not seem to work to our own satisfaction as ‘liabilities’ are increasingly common.
Research in sociology and the (cultural) history of science has, over the years, retraced the theoretical development of this pervasive notion as well as its habitual implementation into our society, and, thus, has successfully questioned the ubiquity of economic rationality as ‘naturally’ given.
The Cultures of Currencies conference, however, will set out to turn the tables on this way of thinking: Instead of reading all kinds of behavior as economic, we propose to regard economic behavior as cultural and to investigate markets as cultures.
So, whereas the economic view tends to level differences not only between various fields of behavior, but also between historical periods and geographical areas by seeing them as following from the same ‘economic laws’, looking at markets as cultures encourages us instead to focus on the cultural relativity of fundamental economic concepts – first and foremost those of “market”, “currency”, “exchange” and “property” –, as well as the underlying idea of the economic “subject”.
This perspective also requires us to question the disciplinary divide between the ‘political’ and the ‘economic’ and thus to analyze political systems as economies and, vice versa, to understand markets as systems of power.
Further Information:
Language: | English |
Participation | The conference is open to the public. Admission is free. |
More Information
For further information on participation and the travel process please contact us.
The Chair Holder
| Phone: | +49 7541 6009-1361 |
| Room: | FAB 3 | 1.47 |
Sources image gallery:
- Image 1: E-ticker.jpg/Pavel Lyakhovskiy/17-11-2006/CC0 1.0
- Image 2: Fmb_monnaie_Grece_Athenes_-450_.jpg/Alpra ArazeL/
10-06-2016/CC BY-SA4.0
- Image 3: The_Banker_and_His_Wife_-_WGA19323.jpg/
Marinus van Reymerswaele/1533-1545 /CC0 1.0
- Image 4: Tauschhandel_Grossfriedrichsburg_1690.jpg/Ingrid Mittenzwei,
Erika Herzfeld /1690/ CC0 1.0
- Image 5: Money_changers.jpg/Autor: Unbekannt /1920/ CC0 1.0