Stanford to Host Conference on Founding Institution of Modern Education; the Republic of Letters

PR Log (Press Release) – Nov 27, 2007 – The Renaissance saw the emergence of a network of scholars, who came to be known, through their correspondence and publications, as the Republic of Letters. This enlightened community of influential philosophers and thinkers pioneered the practices and disciplines that still lie at the heart of humanities education and research today. THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS: BETWEEN RENAISSANCE & ENLIGHTENMENT conference, sponsored by the Stanford University Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, will feature a presentation by Anthony Grafton, Professor of History at Princeton University and author of numerous books including, The Footnote: A Curious History. All conference events will take place at the Stanford Humanities Center and are free and open to the public.

Conference presentations will provide the foundation for a new digital journal, Republics of Letters. The e-journal, hosted by the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, will be the first journal to focus on the intersection of literature and political thought. Republics of Letters will provide a unique on-line platform that will allow researchers to comment and build on journal articles. The journal will launch in September 2008.

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS
   
The “Republic of Letters, as the autonomous community of scholars in Early modern Europe was known, constitutes the venerable ancestor for a wide range of intellectual societies: the seventeenth-century salons, early modern Academies, the Enlightenment "société des gens de lettres," and the Modern university all owe numerous characteristics to this Renaissance creation. As a non-State network, moreover, it arguably provided the foundations for the bourgeois “public sphere,” in which critical discourse and opinion could challenge governmental authority.

Our knowledge about the Republic of Letters, however, remains remarkably patchy. What was its reach, in terms of territory and social groups? How long did it last? What were its relations with the State? How did gender factor as a significant element? Were there separate “republics,"  and if so, how did they differ? What were the politics of this Republic?

Traditional challenges confronting the study of the Republic of Letters are periodization and a narrow geographical focus. To overcome this first difficulty, we have invited scholars whose research concerns the 17th– and/or 18th–century to consult and debate with specialists of the Renaissance, the period when the Republic of Letters was first formed.

We hope to uncover in this manner, possibly for the first time, some of the later avatars of this Republic. In response to the second challenge, we are assembling a diverse group of scholars, whose combined expertise encompasses a vast international breadth (including the Americas, Austria, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain).

Contact:
Dan Edelstein –French Professor; Stanford University:
danedels@stanford.edu or  (650) 796-9705

George Bloom - Comparative Literature Ph.D. Candidate; Stanford University
bloom@stanford.edu   


Comment:
Dan Edelstein – French Professor; Stanford University:
danedels@stanford.edu or  (650) 796-9705

Paula Findlen – History Professor; Stanford University:
pfindlen@stanford.edu or (650) 723-9570

Jacob Soll – History Professor; Rutgers University:
soll@camden.rutgers.edu or (609) 225-2712

CONFERENCE PROGRAM

Friday, November 30
Stanford Humanities Center, Levinthal Hall

10:00-10:30 am: Welcoming Remarks: Stephen Hinton, Professor of
Musicology, Senior Associate Dean for the School of Humanities and
Sciences, Stanford University

10:30-12:00 am: The Empire Writes Back
Caroline Sherman (Catholic University): "Families in the Republic of  
Letters."

Paola Molino (EUI): "'Nothing more than a librarian:' Hugo Blotius's
Projects of the Universal Library and the Museum of Human Beings."

Liam Brockey (Princeton University): "An Imperial Republic?: The
Global Correspondence of Manuel Severim de Faria, 1618-1655."

2:00-3:30 pm: Revising the Republic of Letters
Peter Miller (Bard Graduate Center): "Publisher, Printer, Antiquarian,
Spy: Peiresc and the Origines Murensis Monasterii (1618)."

Jean Boutier (EHESS): "Did a Republic of Letters Ever Exist?"

Jacob Soll (Rutgers University, Camden): "Jean-Baptiste Colbert's
Republic of Letters: Repression, Innovation and Learning under the Sun
King."

4:00-5:00 pm: Plenary Lecture
Anthony Grafton (Princeton University): "Lost Continent: The Republic
of Letters."

5:00-7:00 pm: Reception at the Stanford Faculty Club

Saturday, December 1
Stanford Humanities Center, Levinthal Hall

10:30-12:00 am: The Power of Knowledge
Margaret Jacob (UCLA): "Was the Republic of Letters Inherently Radical?"

Bianca Chen (EUI): "The Republic of Letters at Work: Gisbert Cuper
(1644-1716) and the Exchange of Antiquarian Information."

Gary Marker (SUNY, Stonybrook): "Standing in Petersburg and Looking
West, or, Is 'Backwardness' All There Is?"

1:30-2:30 pm: Salons and Erudition
Antoine Lilti (ENS): "Do Salons Belong to the Republic of Letters?
Sociability and Worldliness in Eighteenth-Century Paris."

Paula Findlen (Stanford University): "Founding a Scientific Academy:
The 'Philosophical Family' of Clelia del Grillo Borromeo in Early
Eighteenth-Century Milan."

3:00-4:00 pm: An Enlightened Republic?
Elena Russo (The Johns Hopkins University): "Slander and Glory in the
Republic of Letters."

Dan Edelstein (Stanford University): "Encyclopedic Humanism and the
Esprit Philosophique."

4:00-5:30 pm: Roundtable Discussion