In this keynote address, Professor Liz Stanley sketches out some ideas about how to theorise and use the heuristic of ‘the epistolarium’. She shall explore how, in what ways, and also with what limitations, thinking about the epistolarity in terms of economy and exchange and Mauss’s conceptualisation of ‘the system of the gift’ can throw useful light on different aspects of the epistolary form and its changes across time and also its sub-forms.
