CFP | Natures and Spaces of Enlightenment (David Nichol Smith Seminar), Griffith University and the University of Queensland, December 13-15, 2017

Brisbane, Griffith University and the University of Queensland, December 13 – 15, 2017

Deadline: Aug 1, 2017

The Australian and New Zealand Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies is pleased to announce that the sixteenth David Nichol Smith Seminar, Natures and Spaces of Enlightenment, will be held in Brisbane, Australia, at Griffith University and the University of Queensland on the 13th to 15th December 2017. We welcome proposals for papers or panels on the theme ‘Natures and Spaces of Enlightenment’, broadly conceived as referring to the plurality of Enlightenments as well as the ideas and uses of nature which they endorsed, and the spaces in which they developed.  In the inclusive spirit of the David Nichol Smith Seminar, proposals may address any aspect of the long eighteenth century.

Especially relevant topics include:

  •  Enlightenment and religion, science, empire or gender
  • Popular, moderate and radical enlightenments
  • Regional, national and global enlightenments
  • Climate, the environment and the Anthropocene
  • Emotion, sentimentalism and the language of feeling
  • Theories of human nature and civil society
  • Improvement and social utility
  • Travel, exploration and discovery
  • Trade and commerce
  • Philanthropy and the culture of moral/social reform
  • Spaces of sociability such as clubs, salons, coffeehouses and taverns
  • Urban and rural spaces
  • Ideas of landscape and forms of land use
  • Nature in art, literature and music
  • Natural history, natural philosophy, natural law and natural theology
  • Nature in economic and political writing
  • Nature, medicine, sexuality and the body
  • Botany, geology and geography
  • Representations and uses of animals
  • Work, leisure, technology and industrialisation

The following keynote speakers will be presenting at the conference:

Deidre Lynch (Harvard University)
Jan Golinski (University of New Hampshire)
Georgia Cowart (Case Western Reserve University)
Sujit Sivasundaram (University of Cambridge)

The Call for Papers is available to view on the ANZSECS website: https://anzsecs.com/conference/natures-and-spaces-of-enlightenmentcall-for-papers/

We look forward to receiving proposals on any aspect of the long eighteenth century related to the conference theme.  The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1st August.

If you have any questions about the conference, please contact one of the organisers:

Peter Denney (p.denney@griffith.edu.au) or Lisa O’Connell (l.oconnell@uq.edu.au).

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