Cultures of Knowledge: An Intellectual Geography of the Seventeenth-Century Republic of Letters

Dr Noël Golvers answers questions following his talk.

In the opening paper of the Project’s seminar series on Thursday 29 April, Dr Noël Golvers (Catholic University of Leuven) provided a large audience with a fascinating overview of the contours, chronology, and thematic preoccupations of ‘Scholarly Correspondence from the Jesuits in China with Europe (17th–18th Centuries)’. In a wide-ranging analysis, Golvers argued for the strategic importance of a large, well-regulated correspondence network to this administratively complex and geographically distributed community, a network which frequently and increasingly sustained communication on scientific matters alongside confessional and organizational subjects (previously used by Golvers to shed light on Jesuit contributions to astronomy and mathematics). He provided an overview of the characteristics of the correspondence generated by the China mission, information on transfer routes (both overseas and overland), and a synopsis of the broad range of learned topics they covered, especially from the 1680s (including mathematics, astronomy, engineering, and cartography). He also considered the impact of the letters on contemporary European readers, as well as their descent to and organisation within modern archives and collections. Overall, the paper provided fresh insights into both a particular epistolary culture of knowledge, and a neglected source for seventeenth-century European and world history more generally. Seminars take place in the Faculty of History on George Street on Thursdays at 3pm. For future seminars in the series, please see here.

Podcast now available on the seminar page!

Papers are sought for an interdisciplinary graduate conference on ‘Intellectual Exchange and Networks in Europe, 1500-1660: Approaches from the Humanities and Social Sciences’, due to take place at the University of Chicago on 7-8 May 2010. Featuring keynote contributions from Denis Crouzet and Peter N. Miller, the conference will explore how ideas moved through Europe between 1500 and 1660, with a particular emphasis on social networks, trade routes, epistolary webs, and multiple forms of literary transmission. The conference will also consider the movement of ideas in the present. The deadline for the receipt of 250-word abstracts is 30 November 2009; for further details and submission instructions, see H-Net.

Contributions are sought for a workshop on ‘Intellectual Networks and Exchanges’, due to take place at Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge on 1-2 July 2010. Building on the methodological redefinition of ‘exchanges’ and of ‘networks’ which has occurred in the past three decades, the workshop will investigate cultural and intellectual networks and exchanges of ideas from the late medieval to the modern period. It will pay particular attention to the role of sources, historical factors, geography, images, and ideologies in creating, fostering, and preserving communicative practices, especially within colonial settings. For further information, please see the workshop webpage or contact the organizer, Dr Isabel DiVanna.

Papers are invited for a conference on ‘Circulating Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Europe: Networks, Knowledge and Forms’, due to be held at the Royal Society in London on 8-10 July 2010. The conference will explore the dynamic intellectual economies brought into being by wars, revolution, and international exploration, with particular reference to the forms in which ideas circulated; the networks of intelligencers, scribes, printers, publishers, and booksellers through which they moved; and the structures of knowledge which linked particular categories of content to particular material forms. The deadline for the receipt of 300-word abstracts is 7 January 2010; for further details and submission instructions, see the conference website.