15th ESSE Conference
August 31 – September 4, 2020
Lyon, France
S21: From Cottonopolis to the Ville Lumière of Silk: Factories, Fibres and Frameworks of Victorian Textiles
A follow-up to the “The Finer Threads” session at the 2016 Galway ESSE conference, this session seeks to extend ongoing research by mapping the many channels through which textile and textual exchanges circulated in Europe in the nineteenth century. Our session aims to explore the tensions between the textile industry as a site of modernisation, technological innovation and economic opportunity, and a site of working-class resistance against exploitation or “white slavery”. It also examines the impact of textile production beyond the factory by providing narratives and subject matter (objects, machines and artefacts) for the literary and visual arts. Historical, literary or aesthetic approaches are welcome and interdisciplinary approaches to the subject are strongly encouraged.
Convenors: Fabienne Moine (Université Paris Est Créteil, France), Michael Sanders (University of Manchester, UK)
If interested, please send a short proposal (500 words max) and a short biography (300 words) to either of the following e-mail addresses:
michael.sanders@manchester.ac.uk
The closing date for proposals is February 3rd.