RSA ANNUAL MEETING
SAN FRANCISCO
19TH-22ND FEBRUARY 2026

In Renaissance Europe, the logic of waste was not one of disposal, but of continuity, circulation, and reuse. From rag-paper and metal scraps to worn textiles and broken glass, what modernity often discards was, for Renaissance societies, a resource with monetary, material, and social value. These economies of reuse were not peripheral – they were integral to how industries functioned, cities operated, and people lived.

This session invites contributions that explore how waste, repair, salvage, and recycling functioned as economic practices, social behaviors, and cultural paradigms in the late medieval and early modern period. Rather than viewing discarded materials as mere detritus, we propose to see them as active components of production systems, shaping labor, consumption, commerce, and even worldviews.

We welcome proposals from scholars in history, art history, material culture, economic history, archaeology, literary studies, and related fields.

Topics of interest may include (but are not limited to):

• Types of waste generated by Renaissance industries (e.g., textiles, metals, glass, paper, leather, construction)
• The economic value of salvaged materials and the infrastructure of their reuse
• The cultural significance of mending, repairing, and second-hand use
• Recyclable goods in local, regional, and transnational markets
• The role of gender, class, and profession in reuse economies
• Guild regulations and institutional attitudes toward waste and reuse
• Recycling and urban space: markets, workshops, and storage
• The relationship between household economies and artisanal salvage
• Changing attitudes toward ‘the old, the used, the discarded’
• Waste and early capitalism: an overlooked variable in economic historiography

Please send the following, specifying your current affiliation (if applicable), and language of presentation, to Alessia Meneghin [mea4@uv.es] by 15th July:

• Title (15-words maximum)
• Abstract (200-words maximum)
• 2-pages CV