Since 2003, the Department of History and Ethnology at the University of Jyväskylä has organised an annual Gustav Vasa Seminar. The next Seminar will be held on 5-6 June 2025. Gustav Vasa Seminar 2025 will focus on improvement in early modern Sweden.
Recent studies of early modern history have indicated that demands for political and economic change were largely informed by a culture of improvement. This has been argued to be the case especially of England, but there is new evidence that the discourse of improvement was more broadly significant in Europe, and especially in Sweden. The evidence is still fragmentary, and we lack a clear understanding of the depth and scale of the culture of improvement in early modern Europe.
The goal of the culture of improvement was betterment, conceptualized in terms of wealth, growth and the welfare of a nation. Consequently, new foundational questions of interest arise: Was there something about the widespread culture of improvement that defined the practices of political economy across most of Europe during the seventeenth- and eighteenth century? Was it the prime form of political and economic discourse, and was it simply taken for granted?
This year’s Gustav Vasa seminar has been designed to produce more knowledge of how improvement was defined by the institutions in which it was embedded in Sweden: in colonial administration, Diet, journals and the University.
More information can be found on the seminar website: https://www.jyu.fi/en/events/gustav-vasa-seminar-2025-improvement-in-early-modern-sweden.
For the coffee breaks, please register using the registration form by 22 May.
The seminar is organised by ”Decentring Eighteenth-Century Political Economy: Rethinking Growth, Wealth and Welfare in the Swedish Empire” (DEPE) ERC Consolidator Grant Project, led by PI Ere Nokkala.
Programme
Thursday, 5 June 2025 (Room: Historica, H306)
9.30 – 10.00 Coffee
10.00 – 10.10 Rector Jari Ojala (Jyväskylä): Opening words
10.10 – 10.30 Ere Nokkala (Jyväskylä): Introduction
1. “Foundations” of Improvement: Materiality, Metaphysics and the State (Chair: Lars Magnusson)
10.30 – 11.30 Carl Wennerlind (New York): Materiality and Metaphysics in the Swedish Improvement Discourse
11.30 – 12.30 Marten Seppel (Tartu): Sweden as a Cameral State: Improvement and Cameralisation during the Reign of Charles XI
12.30 – 13.30 Lunch
2. Natural History and Agricultural Improvement (Chair: Danila Raskov)
13.30 – 14.30 Laura Tarkka (Jyväskylä): Improvement and Publicity: Eric Gustaf Lidbeck’s Reports on the Plantations in Skåne
14.30 – 15.30 Hans Erich Bödeker (Göttingen): Natural History and Improvement: The Case of Linnaeus’s Disciple Johann Beckmann
15.30 – 16.00 Coffee
16.00 – 17.00 Keith Tribe (Jyväskylä): Agronomy as Improvement: The Example of Albrecht Thaer
17.00 – 18.00 Ere Nokkala (Jyväskylä): The Science of Improvement: University Chairs in Uppsala and Turku
Friday, 6 June 2025 (Room: Historica, H306)
3. Empire and Colonial Aspirations (Chair: Göran Rydén)
10.00 – 11.00 Patrik Winton (Örebro): War, Credit and Improvement: The Political Economy of the Fiscal Military State in Sweden, 1700-1815
11.00 – 12.00 Vincent Roy-Di Piazza (Jyväskylä): Colonialism and Slavery in the Swedish Age of Liberty
12.00 – 13.00 Lunch
13.00 – 14.00 Desislava Dimitrova (Munich): Improvement and Progress in Anders Sparrman’s Travelogue
4. Diet and Improvement (Chair: Marie-Christine Skuncke)
14.00 – 15.00 Sophie Holm (Helsinki): Improving Political Decision-Making? – Diplomatic Affairs and Translation Processes at the Eighteenth-Century Swedish Diet
15.00 – 15.30 Coffee
15.30 – 16.30 Sara Ekström (Stockholm): The Royal Order of Vasa as a Controversial Tool for Improving Agriculture. Discussions in the Swedish Riksdag 1772
16.30 – 17.30 Joonas Tammela (Jyväskylä): Negotiating the Welfare of the Realm inside the Estates: Improvement and the Eighteenth-Century Riksdag
17.30 – 18.00 Meeting of the International Research Network “Decentring Eighteenth-Century Political Economy”
18.00 Networking Buffet
Tapahtuma-ajat
- Alkaa:
- 5.6.2025 10:00
- Loppuu:
- 6.6.2025 18:00
- Tapahtumapaikka:
- University of Jyväskylä / Historica-building
- Osoite:
- Seminaarinkatu 15
- Postinumero:
- 40100
- Postitoimipaikka:
- Jyväskylä
Tapahtuman muut tiedot
- Tapahtuman tyyppi:
- Konferenssit ja seminaarit
- Verkkosivut:
- Avaa verkkosivut
- Yhteyshenkilö:
- Ere Nokkala
- Sähköpostiosoite: