The Prize Papers Talks

The Prize Papers Talks bring together renowned scholars, international early career researchers, master’s students and the interested public to discuss with us in a relaxed lunchtime setting.

The Prize Papers Project is dedicated to the study of the Prize Papers Collection, a vast and unique trove of records and objects confiscated by British privateers and naval vessels between 1652 and 1815, a period of time in which the seizure of ships was still a legitimate form of tactical warfare. The records are now held by The National Archives of the United Kingdom.

The aim of the German–British Prize Papers Project (www.prizepapers.de) is the complete digitization and sorting of the Prize Papers, including preservation of the collection’s material, initial and in-depth cataloguing, creation of research-oriented metadata and finally presentation of digital copies and metadata in an open access research database. We also pursue various research projects and cooperate with numerous international researchers and research institutions working on the Prize Papers and in other project-related areas.

The Prize Papers offer researchers a unique collection of sources. Since its discovery, the collection has already inspired numerous groundbreaking projects in various fields of study and many countries around the world.

In this online lecture series of the PRIZE PAPERS TALKS, we will hear ten lectures from some of the leading experts on and pioneers of working with the collection and discuss their most recent work with them.

The PRIZE PAPERS TALKS will take place between November 4, 2024, and February 24, 2025, every other Monday, at 1–2 pm (CET).

The event is open to the public, with advance registration requested.

Links to the meeting rooms via the user-friendly platform Webex will be provided after registration. Please contact lucas.haasis@uni-oldenburg.de if you have any questions.

The PRIZE PAPERS TALKS are organized by Lucas Haasis in collaboration with Dagmar Freist and Amanda Bevan.

Programme:

04 November 2024: Rebecca Earle (University of Warwick, UK): The World of Jacob de Pinna, Notary and Culture-Broker

25 November 2024: Nathan Perl-Rosenthal (University of Southern California, USA): A "mere head of a petty Clan"? Prize courts and the sovereignty of non-European princes, C18-C19

02 December 2024: Anna Brinkman (University of Lincoln, UK): Balancing Strategy: Sea Power, Neutrality, and Prize Law in the Seven Years' War

09 December 2024: Annika Raapke Öberg (Uppsala Universitet, Sweden): Unto Us A Child is Born: Analyzing the Baptismal records of Swedish Saint-Barthélemy

13 January 2025: Sarah von Hagen (Göttingen University, Germany): How ships became prizes: between customs of the sea and naval cultures of violence

20 January 2025: Wim de Winter (KU Leuven, Belgium): Marital Cooperation and Economic Agency of Maritime Women: Evidence from the Eighteenth-Century Southern Netherlands

27 January 2025: Alejandro Salamanca (EUI, European University Institute Florence, Italy): Microhistories of migration - The Agata Galera, a Dutch frigate crossing the Spanish Atlantic

10 February 2025 (3-4pm): Margaret Schotte (York University, Toronto, Canada): The Carpenter’s Notebook: A Maritime Love Story (France-India-Spain)

17 February 2025: Céline Mounole and Annabelle Lafuente (Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour UPPA, France): Presentation of the project BASQEGO (history of the languages of the Basque Country through the ego-documents)

24 February 2025: Michael Talbot (University of Greenwich, UK): Reading Ottoman sources in the Prize Papers