Armel Cornu and Thomas Brobjer: Newly funded research projects at the department

Abstract:

Armel Cornu
“Swedish Science & Copper in the Making of the Eighteenth-Century French Empire”

The copper trade linked the early modern Swedish and French states. Copper mining accelerated alongside growing demand for various products, from luxury goods to instruments. But the largest application was support for imperial expansion, as copper was used in sugar colonies and was the currency used for the purchase of enslaved Africans. During the eighteenth century, France became a leading client for Swedish copper. Because they both relied on this key metal, Sweden and France were invested in accumulating metallurgical knowledge, leading chemists to frequently collaborate on the topic of metal chemistry. In this project, I investigate the resulting entanglements between Swedish copper, the Franco-Swedish chemistry of metals, and the Atlantic trade.

At the crossroad of socio-economic history and the history of science, this three-year project makes use of extensive materials produced by French and Swedish actors to explore local, national, and global connections between copper mining, science, and empire. I propose to take Swedish knowledge and commodities out of a centre-margin narrative, instead examining their agency and the role they played in the emergence of eighteenth-century chemistry. The project makes empirical, methodological, and theoretical contributions to several fields of historical scholarship. It offers a new commodity history, by focusing on Swedish copper production and the role of Franco- Swedish chemistry in support of state colonial endeavours.

Thomas H. Brobjer
"What can you/one say about Nietzsche’s philosophy by knowing how and what he read?"

I plan to relatively briefly present my research during the seminar, with special reference to my examination of Nietzsche’s reading. There is nothing you need to read before the seminar, but perhaps it could be relevant to think about what one can say about someone from knowing about the person’s library and reading. Perhaps this is especially difficult concerning Nietzsche, since he is so well known and much written about. Many studies have discussed one book or one author’s importance for his thought (such as Kant or Dostoevsky). My speciality has rather been to find, present and discuss large numbers of his books (to place him in the nineteenth century context), but that makes analysis difficult.