Washington Forum event will explore the history of greed

The Menard Family George Washington Forum will host Dr. Penelope Ismay discussing "An Episode in the History of Greed" on March 20 at 6 p.m. in Walter Hall 145.

Ismay is associate professor of history at Boston College, director of undergraduate studies and director of undergraduate engagement. She is interested in how the radical changes associated with modernity were made socially meaningful in Britain and around the world. Her first book, Trust Among Strangers: Friendly Societies in Modern Britain, examined the surprising ways in which Britons used friendly societies to navigate the new social landscape of rapidly growing urban centers in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

She is currently working on a social history of self-interest and on the changing boundaries that Britons drew around it in the second half of the nineteenth century. Tentatively titled The Boundaries of Self-Interest, her hope is that this new story might remind us that when Britain experienced its most profound period of economic growth it also worked hardest to keep self-interest within socially justifiable boundaries.

Professor Ismay teaches courses on early modern and modern Britain, its empire, revolution and social trust in modern Europe.

“The George Washington Forum connected with Professor Ismay during our 2023 capstone trip to Boston when she led a seminar on the evolution of British legal norms in response to violations of trust during the expansion of banking and financial markets following industrialization,” said Dr. Cortney Rodet, director of the George Washington Forum and associate professor of economics in the College of Arts and Sciences.

“The general focus of her work has explored how norms and conventions of all sorts evolved in response to the Great Enrichment, when the potential for conflict between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (or community and society) threatened to undermine the material benefits of economic growth. Her talk will showcase ways in which communities in 19th century Britain responded to greed at a time of rising living standards and economic opportunity.”

This event is free and open to the public and all are invited to join.