Gustav Vasa Seminar 2025 – Improvement in Early Modern Sweden
Jyväskylä, 5–6 June 2025
Thursday, 5 June 2025 (Room: Historica, H306 )
9.30 – 10.00 Coffee
10.00 – 10.10 Rector Jari Ojala (ⱹää): Opening words
10.10 – 10.30 Ere Nokkala (ⱹää): 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 (ⱹää): Improvement and Publicity: Eric Gustaf Lidbeck’s Reports on the Plantations in Skåne
14.30 – 15.30 Hans Erich Bödeker (öٳپԲ): Natural History and Improvement: The Case of Linnaeus’s Disciple Johann Beckmann
15.30 – 16.00 Coffee
16.00&Բ;–&Բ;17.00&Բ;Keith Tribe (ⱹää): Agronomy as Improvement: The Example of Albrecht Thaer
17.00 – 18.00 Ere Nokkala (ⱹää): 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 (Ö): War, Credit and Improvement: The Political Economy of the Fiscal Military State in Sweden, 1700-1815
11.00 – 12.00 Vincent Roy-Di Piazza (ⱹää): 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 (ⱹää): 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
DEPE | ERC Consolidator Project 2024-2028
Grant agreement ID: 101088549
Funded by the European Union (ERC, DEPE, 101088549). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them
