Moralism, Fundamentalism, and the Rhetoric of Decline in Eurasia, 1600–1900
Session 2: Urban Discontent in the Long Eighteenth Century across Eurasia

A core program conference at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
—organized by Clark Professors Andrea S. Goldman and Gabriel Piterberg, (UCLA)

Friday, February 8th

Core Program

The Clark and Center core program for 2012–2013 explores responses to crises and upheavals in early modern landed empires, with special focus on the Ottoman and Qing empires. In particular, we will investigate the perceptions of temporary collapses of state power in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Detecting tendencies toward moralism and perceived decline in elite discourses and state policies, we will look at the ways such concerns were expressed in the domains of institutional and educational reforms, sexual mores, and cultural representation. We will also examine how social boundaries were both rigidified and contested at such moments of transition. We hope to discern shared patterns across Eurasia as well as trajectories specific to each political entity.

Session 2—Urban Discontent in the Long Eighteenth Century across Eurasia

This conference will examine various social and literary expressions of discontent in the main urban centers across these landed empires.  Topics may include urban violence, sexual mores, literary lampoons, as well as states’ responses to such challenges to their authority.

–Registration form   

Registration Deadline: February 1st, 2013

Please click here for a printable registration form.

Registration Fees: $20 per person; UC and affiliated faculty & staff, students with ID: no charge*

All students, UC and affiliated faculty, and staff may register via e-mail by sending their name, affiliation and phone number to c1718cs@humnet.ucla.edu

*Students should be prepared to provide their current University ID at the conference.

Complimentary lunch and other refreshments are provided to all registrants.

Please be aware that space at the Clark is limited and that registration closes when capacity is reached. Confirmation will be sent via email.

Friday,
February 8th

9:30 a.m.

Morning Coffee and Registration

10:00 a.m.

Barbara Fuchs, University of California, Los Angeles
Welcome

Andrea S. Goldman and Gabriel Piterberg, University of California, Los Angeles
Opening Remarks

Session 1: Violence and Scandal in Eighteenth-Century Eurasia
Chair: Sanjay Subrahmanyam, University of California, Los Angeles

Abhishek Kaicker, Graduate Student, Columbia University
Popular Violence and the State in Eighteenth-Century Shahjahanabad

Fariba Zarinebaf, University of California, Riverside
Urban Rebellions and Violence in Eighteenth-Century Istanbul

Janet Theiss, University of Utah
Lessons from a Scandal: Sex, Corruption and Social Ferment in China’s "Flourishing Age"

12:45 p.m.

Lunch

1:45 p.m.

Session 2: Cities, Texts, and Social Decline across the Eighteenth-Century Eurasian Continent
Chair: Andrea S. Goldman, University of California, Los Angeles

Spencer Jackson, Ahmanson-Getty Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles
Pope, Swift, and the Ambivalent Exoticism of Feminine Commerce

Keith McMahon, University of Kansas
Social Decline and Sexual Disorder in Fiction of the Qing Dynasty

3:15 p.m.

Coffee Break

3:30 p.m.

Session 3: Critiques of State Power in Visual and Literary Representations across Eurasia
Chair: Gabriel Piterberg, University of California, Los Angeles

Zirwat Chowdhury, Ahmanson-Getty Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles
An Architectural “Profileˮ of the City of London in 1788

Andrea S. Goldman, University of California, Los Angeles
Historical Plays and Urban Discontent in Beijing during the Long Eighteenth Century

5:00 p.m.

Reception