Enlightenment Correspondences Seminars
A series of lunchtime seminars in 2016-2017 on correspondents from philosopher David Hume to fairy-tale writer Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont.
Discussion of current epistolary work being undertaken by members and some recent surveys of work on Enlightenment letters (February 2016)
Members: Professor Pamela Clemit, Dr. Isabel Matthews-Schlinzig, Professor Andrew Kahn, and Kelsey Rubin-Detlev.
Jennifer Wood, Alexander Iosad, and Andrew Kahn examined three eighteenth-century letters (June 2016)
- William Godwin’s first courtship letter to Mary Wollstonecraft;
- a scientific letter from eighteenth-century Russia;
- a literary letter by Nikolay Karamzin.
Presentations on 'The Prosimetric Letter' and the correspondence between explorer and scientist Charles Marie de la Condamine and the French ambassador in Florence, Luigi Lorenzi (January 2017)
Presenters: Kevin Hilliard and Ruggero Sciuto
Enlightenment Correspondences Seminar (February 2017)
Speaker: Professor Laurence Brockliss
Epistolary Openings and Closings (November 2017)
An Enlightenment Correspondences Seminar
What is a Letter? An Interdisciplinary Approach (July 2014)
A conference that brought together experts on letter writing.
The conference comprised four sections, covering key aspects of letters, letter writing, and the reception and study of both:
- Models and Terminologies
- Mediality and Materiality
- Performance and Interaction
-
Editing and Commenting
Followed by a workshop on interpreting a selection of letters and a seminar in the Bodleian Library, with speakers and invited guests to the library’s letter collections.
Making an Anthology of Voltaire's Letters: The Problems and the Pleasures (November 2014)
Speaker: Professor Nicholas Cronk (Director of the Voltaire Foundation)
Willian Godwin's Letters (November 2014)
Colloquium and Book Launch to celebrate the publication of The Letters of William Godwin, Volume II: 1798-1805, edited by Pamela Clemit (Oxford University Press).
Chair: Nicholas Halmi (Oxford)
Speakers: Mark Philp (Warwick), Jenny McAuley (Oxford), Jon Mee (York), Pamela Clemit (Durham/Oxford)
Precious Fragments (March 2015)
Discussion-based session about the letters as a gift and an object of value.
Jennifer Wood (University of Oxford) and Kelsey Rubin-Detlev (University of Oxford) gave a 15-20 minute introduction to raise various theoretical questions about letters as objects of exchange, as gifts, currency, debts, and obligations.
Enlightenment Correspondences (June 2015)
A two-day workshop to bring together leading specialists in the area and explore major themes and correspondence practices including the pragmatics and practices of epistolarity; the cultural, institutional, and philosophical practices and discourses of the Republic of Letters; affective relations in eighteenth-century correspondences; academic debates; political and intellectual networks; and digital editing.
Reciprocity, Reputation and the Pupil-School Relationship in Letters from the École Royale Militaire Archives (November 2015)
A talk by Gemma Tidman
The paper explored how an important institution of Ancien Régime France responded to, and capitalised on, the nature of letters as texts that ‘straddle the divide between ‘private’ and ‘public’’ (Daybell) in order to further its reputation, and ultimately that of the government.
Enlightenment Correspondences Talk (December 2015)
A paper by Professor Liz Stanley (Sociology, University of Edinburgh)
Enlightenment and Conservatism in the Correspondence of the Verri Brothers (February 2016)
Speaker: Pierre Musitelli (ENS, Paris)
Letters of Laurence Sterne (February 2016)
Speaker: Alexis Tadié (Former Director of the Maison Française d'Oxford (2003-2008))
‘“All My Important Nothings”: Jane Austen and Her Letters’ (March 2016)
Speaker: Fiona Stafford (University of Oxford)
Royal Secrets: Marie-Antoinette's Exchanges with Ambassador Mercy (April 2016)
Speaker: Professor Catriona Seth (All Souls', University of Oxford)
The Correspondence of David Hume (November 2016)
Speaker: Felix Waldmann (University of Cambridge)
Cosmopolites or Nationalists? (January 2017)
Mme de Stael, Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar, Frederick II, Rahel Varnhagen and Caroline de la Motte-Fouque in Dialogue
Crossing the Channel: The Love Letters of Marie Le Prince de Beaumont and Thomas Tyrrell (May 2017)
Professor Peggy Elliott (Georgia College & State University): A talk about the author of ‘Beauty and the Beast’
The Epistolary Construction of Christian Friendships (June 2017)
A talk entitled '"from benevolent hearts & polish'd able pens what may not be hop'd for?": The Epistolary Construction of Christian Friendships.
Speaker: Tessa Whitehouse
Locusts of love: Imagi(ni)ng insect reproduction in the 18th century (March 2017)
Enlightenment Workshop: A series of seminars in the Spring and Summer (Hilary and Trinity) Terms at the Voltaire Foundation.
Convenors: Nicholas Cronk (St Edmund Hall) and Avi Lifschitz (Magdalen College)
