The Intellectual Geographies of the Northern Enlightenment: In, Above, and Beneath Regional Context

Interdisciplinary conference convened by Brian Kjær Olesen.

Description

In recent decades, our understanding of the Enlightenment has gone through significant transformations. Traditionally associated with a little flock of Parisian philosophes, current scholarship has not only expanded the catalogue of figures now to be included in the Enlightenment canon, but also shed light on diverse locations and rival forms of Enlightenment. This conference contributes to this agenda by bringing to life one branch amongst a multitude of Enlightenments, that is, the Northern Enlightenment. On the traditional view, Northern Europe and especially Scandinavia belonged geographically as well as intellectually to the periphery of Enlightenment Europe, far remote from the French centre of Enlightenment. This conference offers a different perspective on the Enlightenment in Northern Europe, proposing to look at the Northern Enlightenment as a composite concept. Seeking to understand geographically and intellectually the composition of the Northern Enlightenment, the conference situates the connectivity and conflicts between places, persons and ideas in as well as above and beneath the regional scale. Combining the study of intellectual contexts with that of geographical settings, the conference will shed light on three intertwined clusters of enquiry: (i) the places, spaces and localities, (ii) the persons, personae and practices, and (iii) the intellectual positions, languages and constellations that constituted the Northern Enlightenment in its rival strands.

Programme