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Presented by Dr Kate Smith.

What does it mean to own something? What did this relationship of possession mean in the past? This lecture will explore these questions by looking to the eighteenth century, a period when people came to own more, but also when people wrestled with what (or more pointedly who) could be owned. 

It examines understandings of ownership by studying instances of loss and the ways in which people responded to these experiences by seeking out reclamation. It follows attempts to find lost dogs, reclaim forgotten watches, identify missing bank notes and pursue runaways. In following these stories, it draws on anthropology, sociology and literary studies to show how they are revealing of understandings of ownership, but also the self and self-worth at the dawn of the modern age.