Past Event

Discussion of Common Sense: A Political History and presentation of “The Choices We Make: The Roots of Modern Freedom”
A discussion of Sophia Rosenfeld's recent book Common Sense: A Political History (Harvard, 2011) and an overview of her current research entitled "The Choices We Make: The Roots of Modern Freedom.
Public Lecture: The Science, Art and Politics of the Enlightenment Body
Sound and Silence: The Politics of Revolt in the Art of Lucas de Heere and Joris Hoefnagel
Patriarchy, Celibacy, and Marriage: Subversion and Religious Education in Early Nineteenth-Century France

Consuming Passions: Economies of Desire in French Literature and Arts, 1100-1815
Consuming Passions engages a range of topics involving the treatment of desire, obsession, and appetites as expressed in texts, images, and music in the early modern period. All conference participants will focus on issues related to France, and many will choose to connect France in two or more periods (medieval through the eighteenth century) and/or to make connections between France and other countries.

Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World
Mark Elliott, the Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History at Harvard University, is the author of The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (Stanford, 2001). He will be discussing his recent biography Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World (Pearson-Longman, 2009) with the Salon and giving a public lecture entitled “Was China an Empire?” on April 22nd and 23rd. (http://harvardealc.org/biography.php?personId=222)

The Enlightenment: A Geneology
Dan Edelstein, Associate Professor of French and, by courtesy, Professor of History at Stanford University is the author of The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution (Chicago, 2009). He will be discussing his still more recent book The Enlightenment: A Geneology (Chicago, 2010) over lunch at noon on Thursday, March 21st. His public talk entitled “In the Name of Revolution: Reflections on Political Authority” is scheduled for that afternoon at 4:30 in Hurst Lounge. (http://humanexperience.stanford.edu/edelstein)

Citizen Spectator: Art, Illusion, and Visual Perception in Early National America
Wendy Bellion, Associate Professor of American Art of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century at the University of Delaware will discuss her book Citizen Spectator: Art, Illusion, and Visual Perception in Early National America (UNC, 2011) and present her new research project entitled What Statues Remember: Iconoclasm and Ritual in Early New York on Thursday, January 31st from 3-5:30 in Eads 217, followed by dinner. (http://www.udel.edu/ArtHistory/faculty/bellion.html)