You are warmly invited to a showcase of research from the AHRC-funded History of Financial Advice project at the University of Edinburgh.
Please join us to learn about the changing ways in which ordinary people have been advised to invest their money, from the eighteenth century to the present (details below).
Time: 3.10-4.30 pm, Wednesday 5th December 2018
Place: S.1 / room 2.01, second floor, 7 George Square, University of Edinburgh
Attendance is free, but please reserve a place at https://financialadviceedinburgh.eventbrite.co.uk
Lessons from Three Centuries of Financial Advice: A Showcase of Research in the Economic Humanities
The School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures in collaboration with the Edinburgh Futures Institute, the University of Edinburgh Business School, and the Library of Mistakes
Books purporting to make their readers wealthy - often through investments in stocks or other financial assets - are perennially popular, but the history of this genre is only now being uncovered. This event showcases research from the three-year Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded “History of Financial Advice” project, which has traced the investment advice genre from its origins in the print culture of eighteenth-century London to its explosion across multiple platforms and media in the present.
Scholars, industry professionals, educators, and members of the public are invited to learn about the ingenious (if often unfounded) methods presented by financial writers as means of beating the market. Members of the project team will also outline the project’s work with schools and universities to develop new financial literacy curricula as well as its collaboration with the Edinburgh-based Library of Mistakes to build an annotated collection of investment advice literature.
A collaboration between economic historians and scholars in literary and cultural studies, the History of Financial Advice is an example of the emerging interdisciplinary field of the Economic Humanities. The presenters will discuss how bringing humanities perspectives to bear on financial history and financial literature helps us to understand the elements of fantasy, imagination, and desire that shape popular participation in financial markets.
Confirmed presenters:
Dr Paul Crosthwaite (University of Edinburgh)
Professor Peter Knight (University of Manchester)
Professor Nicky Marsh (University of Southampton)
Further information on the History of Financial Advice project: https://historyoffinancialadvice.wordpress.com/