On Relationships Between the USA and Europe
European University Institute
Department of History and Civilisation
Conference, Florence 21-22 May 1999
Sala Triaria, Villa Schifanoia
Organiser: John Brewer, Luisa Passerini, Bo Stråth
Friday 21 May, Sala Triaria, Villa Schifanoia
9.30-12.30 Representations and Identitities
Chair: Luisa Passerini
Silvia Sebastiani (EUI)
The Changing Features of the Americans in the Eighteenth-Century Britannica
Pierangelo Castagneto (Un. di Genova)
From Walden to Wilderness. The Making of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Identity in Nineteenth Century America
Ioanna Laliotou (EUI)
Visions of the World, Visions of America: Science fiction and Other Transatlantic Utopias at the Turn-of-the-Century
Maurizio Vaudagna (U. di Bari)
National Revival as a Category in the Public Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Benito Mussolini
Maurizio Ascari (U. di Bologna)
Prince Camaralzaman and Princess Badoura Come to Tea: Cosmopolitanism and the European identity in “The Europeans”
Lunch (Sala Rossa, Badia)
14.00 – 16.00 Visual Models
Chair: Jerry Seigel (NYU)
Flaminia Gennari (EUI)
Defining the American Art Collector, 1900-1910
Isabelle Engelhardt (EUI)
The Creation of an ‘Artificial Authentic Place’ – The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC
Bob Lumley (Un. College, London)
Between Pop Art and Arte Povera
Coffee Break
16.30 -18.30 Cultural Battlegrounds
Chair: John Brewer (EUI)
Peter Braunstein (NYU)
Cities of the Revolution: the International Itinerary of the 1960s Counterculture
Saverio Giovacchini (CUNY)
The Gap. How André Bazin Became Captain America
Enrica Capussotti (EUI)
James Dean is like me… American Movies in Italy During the Fifties
Saturday 22 May, Sala Triaria, Villa Schifanoia
9.00 – 11.00 Consumption and Production
Chair: Molly Nolan
David Randolph (EUI)
Pausing to Refresh: Creating a Market for Coca-Cola in Sweden
Bent Boel (U. of Aalborg)
The European Productivity Drive and European Visions of America After World War II
Paulina Bren (NYU)
Weekend Get-Aways: Recreations of the American Wild West in Czechoslovakia
Gerben Bakker (EUI)
America’s Master: The Decline of the European Film Industry and the Great War
Coffee Break
11.30 – 13.15 Exchanges
Chair: Bo Stråth
Gwendolyn Wright (Columbia Un., NY)
Good Design and “The Good Life”: Cultural Exchange in Post-World War II Domestic Environments
Adam Arvidsson (EUI)
The Therapy of Consumption, Motivation Research, and the New Italian Housewife, 1958-68
Marie Cronqvist (Un. of Lund)
Atomic Bombs and “Electric Girls” – Mobilising Culture and Technology in Cold War Sweden
Lunch (Sala Rossa – Badia)
14.30 – 16.00 Final Discussion
For more details on the workshop please contact the conference assistant Silvia Sebastiani (fax: +39-55-4685203 and e-mail: sebastia@datacomm.iue.it)
Transferring/Transforming Production Models. Americanization
Robert Schuman Centre and the Flexibility Project in Cooperation with the Department of History
Workshop organized by Bo Stråth and Jonathan Zeitlin
4 June 1999 in Sala Europa, Villa Schifanoia
Britain in the late 18th century, then the US up to the 1960s, Japan in the 1970s and the 1980s, and, again, the US in the 1990s, are examples widely believed to define a transnational standard of productive efficiency. Like contemporary historians, historical actors disagree sharply about the possibilities and limitations of postwar Americanisation or Japanisation in different national and sectoral settings. Nevertheless, there seems to be a generally growing understanding that translating a specific pattern of production into various national institutional and cultural contexts is a much more complex process than merely applying a prefabricated model. Often, images of a particular model emerge in crises and rethinking of established patterns. In such situations, new alternatives are sought. These images of foreign models to be emulated often say more about the situations in the environments in which they emerge than about the would-be model country. The model to emulate is constructed to meet specific local needs, and is typically transformed in its practical application.
The objective of this workshop — within the framework of the flexibility project — is to discuss the conditions and consequences of this type of cross-cultural transfer. The point of departure is the book Americanisation and Its Limits: Reworking US Technology and Management in Postwar Europe and Japan (forthcoming Oxford U P 1999) edited by Jonathan Zeitlin and Gary Herrigel. The book seeks to develop a new comparative analysis of the attempted transfer and diffusion of American production ideas to postwar Europe and Japan, stressing the creativity and reflexivity of local actors together with the resulting proliferation of hybrid forms and practices. Both of the editors as well as Henrik Glimstedt, who is one of the contributors to the book, will present papers.
Programme:
9.30 Jonathan Zeitlin: Americanization and Its Limits: Reworking US Technology and Management in Postwar Europe and Japan
Discussants: Alan Milward and Martin Rhodes
Coffee
11.30 Henrik Glimstedt: Creative Cross-Fertilization and Uneven Americanization of Swedish Industry: Sources of Innovation in Postwar Motor Vehicles and Electrical Manufacturing
Discussant: Bo Stråth
13.00 Lunch in Sala Bandiera
14.30 Gary Herrigel: American Occupation, Market Order and Democracy: Reconfiguring the Japanese and German Steel Industries after World War II
Discussant: Colin Crouch
The workshop will end around 16.30
Please click the texts to download:
Introduction, Glimstedt, Herrigel, Contents
If you have any problems or questions, please mail: zeitlin@datacomm.iue.it
