Call for papers: Conference on ‘Intersections of finance and society’

To be held on 3-4 November 2016 at City University London, UK

Recent years have seen a growth in innovative research on finance across the humanities and social sciences. Following on from the success of the ‘social studies of finance’ approach and the new literature on ‘financialisation’, scholars are taking up the challenge of theorising money and finance beyond the conceptual constraints of orthodox economic theory, with different research agendas emerging under various new monikers. This two-day conference aims to bring these approaches into closer dialogue. In particular, it seeks to identify new synergies between heterodox political economy and various sociological, historical, and philosophical perspectives on the intersections of finance and society.

The conference is organised by the journal Finance and Society (with support from the Department of International Politics at City University London), together with the Social Studies of Finance Network at the University of Sydney (with support from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney).

Confirmed keynotes

Money, utopia, and dystopia – Nigel Dodd (London School of Economics)

Pricing the future – Elena Esposito (University of Modena-Reggio Emilia)

Financialisation and its discontents – Perry Mehrling (Columbia University)

Financial innovation and the meaninglessness of money – Anastasia Nesvetailova (City University London)

Confirmed roundtables

Finance and social theory

Lisa Adkins (University of Newcastle Australia)
Melinda Cooper (University of Sydney)
Yuval Millo (University of Leicester)
Finance and political economy

Dick Bryan (University of Sydney)
Marieke de Goede (University of Amsterdam)
Ronen Palan (City University London)
Themes on which we encourage contributions include

Money and/beyond language;
Performativity and affect in finance;
Finance and social theory;
Derivative finance;
Engaging orthodox economics and finance theory;
Central banking and shadow banking;
Historicity and futurity;
Gifts and debts;
Financial crises, past and present;
Finance and neoliberalism;
The politics of finance.
Contributions are invited in two formats

Papers; abstract of up to 300 words
Panels; panel proposal plus paper abstracts
Paper submission

Please submit abstracts and proposals by 8 August 2016 to both Amin Samman (amin.samman.1@city.ac.uk) and Martijn Konings (martijn.konings@sydney.edu.au).

The conference organisers aim to publish a selection of the papers as special issues in Finance and Society and other prominent peer-reviewed journals. Participants who would like to be considered for these should aim to submit a draft of an original paper by 1 October 2016.

We have limited funding, with priority given to graduate students. Please indicate in your email if you want to be considered for this.