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Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–1762) is known in intellectual history for having established the discourse of philosophical aesthetics with his "Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus" (Reflections on Poetry) and "Aesthetica" (Aesthetics), which consists of two books and is considered Baumgarten’s most important work. But this book amends that history. It shows that Baumgarten's aesthetics is a science of literature that demonstrates the value of literature to philosophy. Baumgarten did not intend to pursue such a task, but in working on his philosophical texts and lectures, he ends up analyzing, synthesizing, and contextualizing literature. He thereby treats it not as belles lettres or as a moral institution but rather as an epistemic object. His aesthetics is thus the first modern literary theory, and his articulation of this theory would never again be matched in its complexity and systematicity. Baumgarten’s theory of literature has never been discovered. It waits latently to take its place in intellectual history.

LITERARY CRITICISM / General. --- Enlightenment. --- Literary theory. --- aesthetics. --- rhetoric.

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Pierre Chaunu sprach 1971 noch vorsichtig von der Herausbildung von "l'Europe des Lumières". Ein halbes Jahrhundert später ist längst zu fragen: Aufklärung nur in Europa? Die transareal angelegte Vorlesung will versuchen, nach der (verlorenen) Einheit der Aufklärung und nach den transatlantisch verflochtenen Geschichten des 18. Jahrhunderts im Bewusstsein der Vielgestaltigkeit aufklärerischer Diskurse zwischen zwei Welten, Europa und Amerika, zu fragen. Gab es eine Aufklärung oder gab es deren viele? Mit einem deutlichen Schwerpunkt innerhalb der Romania will die Vorlesung ein Verständnis dafür wecken, auf welche Weise im "Siècle des Lumières" inter- und transkulturelle Kontakte und Beziehungen im Bereich von Literatur, Philosophie und Kultur funktionierten und wie die literarischen Räume der Aufklärung transatlantisch in Bewegung gerieten. Ziel der Vorlesung ist es, aus vergleichender Sicht monokulturelle Bilder der Aufklärung wie der entstehenden Moderne zu hinterfragen.

LITERARY CRITICISM / European / General. --- Enlightenment. --- Modernity. --- Romance Literatures.

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Inspired by Voltaire’s advice that a text needs to be concise to have real influence, this anthology contains fiery extracts by forty eighteenth-century authors, from the most famous philosophers of the age to those whose brilliant writings are less well-known. These passages are immensely diverse in style and topic, but all have in common a passionate commitment to equality, freedom, and tolerance. Each text resonates powerfully with the issues our world faces today. Tolerance was first published by the Société française d’étude du dix-huitième siècle (the French Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies) in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo assassinations in January 2015 as an act of solidarity and as a response to the surge of interest in Enlightenment values. With the support of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, it has now been translated by over 100 students and tutors of French at Oxford University.

Enlightenment --- Toleration. --- Philosophy, French --- France --- Intellectual life --- Bigotry --- Intolerance --- Tolerance --- Virtues --- Discrimination --- anthology --- enlightenment --- tolerance --- freedom --- philosophers --- equality --- Denis Diderot --- God --- Jean-Jacques Rousseau --- Voltaire --- Enlightenment. --- Intellectual life. --- PHILOSOPHY --- Philosophy, French. --- General. --- 1700 - 1799. --- France. --- Philosophy

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In view of the challenges—many of which are political—that different European countries are currently facing, scholars who work on the eighteenth century have compiled this anthology which includes earlier recognitions of common values and past considerations of questions which often remain pertinent nowadays. During the Enlightenment, many men and women of letters envisaged the continent’s future in particular when stressing their hope that peace could be secured in Europe. The texts gathered here, and signed by major thinkers of the time (Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Kant, Hume or Staël for instance), as well as by writers history has forgotten, present the reflections, with a couple of chronological extensions (from Sully to Victor Hugo) of authors from the long eighteenth century—the French Empire and the fall of Napoleon generated numerous upheavals—on Europe, its history, its diversity, but also on what the nations, which, in all their diversity, make up a geographical unit, have in common. They show the historical origins of the project of a European union, the desire to consolidate the continent’s ties to the Maghreb or to Turkey, the importance granted to commerce and the worries engendered by history’s convulsions, but also the hope vested in future generations.

Politics & government --- gemeinsame werte --- europa --- anthology --- frieden --- enlightenment --- peace --- europäische union --- aufklärung --- hume --- anthologie --- european union --- rousseau --- voltaire --- kant --- europe --- common values --- Deutschland --- Frankreich --- Gallica --- Spanien --- Enlightenment

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Der erste Themenband des neu konzipierten JKGE fragt nach den Spezifika von Bildungspraktiken und -prozessen während der Aufklärungsepoche in den oftmals plurikulturellen und mehrsprachigen Regionen des östlichen Europa. Im Kontext einer global ausgerichteten Erforschung der Aufklärung und der ‚entangled history‘ stehen Fragen nach Transfer, Übersetzung, Vernetzung, Interferenzen, Ungleichzeitigkeiten und Ambivalenzen im Vordergrund: Wie verorten sich die Praktiken der Bildung zwischen Rationalität und kolonialem Blick? Inwiefern waren Bildungsinitiativen und Bildungspraktiken, insbesondere der Volksaufklärung, mit Machtstrukturen verbunden? Wie gestaltete sich der Übergang von religiösen zu stärker rationalen Wissens- und Bildungspraktiken? Wissenschaftler/innen aus Deutschland, Estland, Österreich, Polen, Tschechien und Ungarn nehmen Aspekte aus Politik, Wissenschaft, Bildung, Kirche und Kultur in den Blick. The first issue of the newly designed Journal for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (JKGE) addresses the specific conditions of education practices and education processes in the era of Enlightenment in Eastern Europe and its pluricultural and multilingual regions. Research on the Enlightenment period and on ‘entangled history’ has recently gained a more global focus, and this has foregrounded questions of transfer, translation, networking, interferences, asynchronicity and ambivalence. Were educational practices guided by rationality or by a spirit of colonialism, or somewhere along the spectrum between these? To what extent did the structures of authority exercise an influence on educational initiatives and practices, especially those in popular education? How did the multiconfessional context of Eastern Europe affect the transition from religious education to strongly rational ways of organizing knowledge and education? Researchers from Germany, Estonia, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary focus on aspects of education practices in politics, science, education, church life and culture.

HISTORY / Europe / Eastern. --- Eastern Europe. --- Educational practises. --- Enlightenment. --- Entangled history. --- Erudite communications and popular education.