Welcome
The Transitions to Modernity Colloquium is a broadly interdisciplinary forum to explore the nature and causes of the transition to modernity. We encourage participants and papers from history, economics, sociology, literature, political science, philosophy, and related disciplines. The colloquium meets on alternate Mondays to discuss a precirculated paper. Each session is introduced by a graduate student discussant from a discipline other than that of the presenter. All Yale faculty, graduate students and visitors are welcome to participate.
All papers are available for download on this website approximately two weeks before each meeting.
Colloquium 2011-2012
Mondays at 4pm - Room 38/39, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, 121 Wall Street
Spring 2012
January 9 - Miguel Centeno, Professor of Sociology and International Affairs, Princeton University, “The Arc of Neoliberalism”
February 6 - Meg Jacobs, Associate Professor of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “U.S. Liberalism and the World: the American Century Reconsidered”
February 28 - Andrew Abbott, Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology, the University of Chicago, “Abundance”
[note special date and venue: 4:00 pm Tuesday, Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall]
March 26 - John Elliott, Regius Professor Emeritus, History, Oxford University, “Comparative History: A Personal Perspective”
April 9 - Claude Rawson, Maynard Mack Professor of English, Yale University, “War and the Epic Mania in England and France, 1667-1743: Milton, Boileau and the English Mock-Heroic Poets" Download handouts.
April 23 - Lauren Benton, Professor of History and Law, New York University, “The Legal and Political Origins of Imperial Internationalism”
Fall 2011
September 12 – James Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science; Professor of Anthropology; Director, Agrarian Studies Program, Yale University, "The Late Neolithic Resettlement Camp, the State and the Barbarians."
September 26 – Laura Downs, Director of Studies, Center for History; Director, Interdisciplinary Research Program on the British Isles, l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales, “Women’s Social Action and the Reconfiguration of Politics on the Right in France, 1934-1947: The Case of the Croix de feu”
October 3 – Francesca Trivellato, Professor; Director of Graduate Studies, History, Yale University, “On Good and Bad Credit: A Forgotten Chapter in European Debates about Jews and Capitalism”
October 24 – Ron Aminzade, Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota, "Nationalism and the Politics of Exclusion: An Historical Sociology of Tanzanian Nation-Building"
November 7 – Jeremy Waldron, University Professor of law and philosophy at the New York University School of Law and Chichele Professor in Social and Political Theory at Oxford University, fellow of All Souls College, “The Decline of Natural Right”
November 28 – Charles Bright, Professor of History, University of Michigan and Michael Geyer, Samuel N. Harper Professor of German and European History; Faculty Director, Human Rights Program, University of Chicago, “Benchmarks of Globalization”