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Chers collègues,Les grands esprits se rencontrent et des collègues allemands appellent à se pencher sur le même thème que l'AFHE, mais plus étroitement entendu.Bien cordialement,CL.Call for PapersInternational workshopDealing with economic failures: extrajudicial and judicial conflict regulationsGoethe University Frankfurt a. Main(presumably) 20 - 21 February 2014For a long time economic and social historians have preferred to write about the successful entrepreneur. Only since the big financial crises of the last few years historians have turned their attention to the losers. Meanwhile it has been highlighted that failures should be regarded as common. Nevertheless still remarkably little is known about the losers in economic life. Occupation with the history of failures tells us at least as much about the rise of our modern Western society (Hoppit 1987; Richard Cobb 1978, Paul Omerod (2005), Scott A. Sandage 2006).Moreover, the handling of failures had a deep impact on bankruptcy and creditor-debtor relations. The relation between both has been a product of the legal and political framework in which credit and debt are negotiated. However, their relationship is not only shaped by law, with the rise of transnational and global commerce creditors/debtors- relations changed and with them also bankruptcy and insolvency laws. In the past bankruptcy laws were generally creditor-oriented in all Western countries. The debtor had to face hard conditions besides the loss of all his property but also the loss of his reputation and prison.Although the law was generally creditor-biased in most European countries, social relations between creditor and debtor could influence the outcome of a bankruptcy or insolvency case decisively. Especially in the past credit relations were essentially shaped by cultural norms such as reputation, obligation and social standing. Depending on the social character of personal credit relations they could either mitigate the harshness of law or even bypass it by informal private regulation.The planned workshop invites paper proposals that deal with the following aspects:relationship between legal and cultural norms in handling bankruptcies and insolvencies in the past (15th-20th centuries)private regulations of economic failures within or outside the law (16th-20th centuries).Language: English and GermanProposals of about 500 words should be sent to Margrit Schulte Beerbuehl, University of Duesseldorf, Department of Historical Studies II.schulteb@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de before 1 June 2013