Emulation, Fame, and Knowledge Transfer: Prize Contests in the European Republic of Letters (1670–1800)

Emulation, Fame, and Knowledge Transfer: Prize Contests in the European Republic of Letters (1670–1800)

Veranstalter
Avi Lifschitz, Martin Urmann (Collaborative Research Center 980 “Episteme in Motion. Transfer of Knowledge from the Ancient World to the Early Modern Period” (Freie Universität Berlin) in collaboration with the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford)
Ausrichter
Collaborative Research Center 980 “Episteme in Motion. Transfer of Knowledge from the Ancient World to the Early Modern Period” (Freie Universität Berlin) in collaboration with the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford
Veranstaltungsort
Freie Universität Berlin, Seminarzentrum, Raum L115, Otto-von-Simson-Str. 26; Freie Universität Berlin, Villa Engler, Altensteinstraße 2
Gefördert durch
DFG
PLZ
14195
Ort
Berlin-Dahlem
Land
Deutschland
Findet statt
In Präsenz
Vom - Bis
13.07.2022 - 15.07.2022
Von
Martin Urmann, Freie Universität Berlin

The conference focuses on the history of prize contests as a particular medium of public debate in the European Republic of Letters in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Emulation, Fame, and Knowledge Transfer: Prize Contests in the European Republic of Letters (1670–1800)

Prize competitions were a shared practice across countries and institutions, playing a central role in the 18th-century public sphere, but they have received little scholarly attention. The conference examines these contests through new analytical and theoretical lenses, with an emphasis on comparative and transnational perspectives. Speakers analyse the long-term history of the genre and its rhetorical background while engaging with individual competitions especially from ‘peripheries’ of the Republic of Letters and beyond Europe. The conference thus contributes to an entangled history of this particular medium of the early modern Republic of Letters.

Programm

Wednesday, 13 July
(Venue: Seminarzentrum, Raum L115, Otto-von-Simson-Str. 26, 14195 Berlin-Dahlem)

15:30–16:00
Avi Lifschitz (University of Oxford), Martin Urmann (Freie Universität Berlin)
Welcome and Introduction

16:00–17:00
Martin Urmann (CRC 980 “Episteme in Motion”)
Panegyric, confirmation of the canon, and knowledge production: prize contests as a hybrid medium of public debate

17:00–17:15 Coffe break

17:15–18:15
Arjan van Dixhoorn (University College Roosevelt, Middelburg)
Dutch prize contests as a measure of long-term cultural change in Europe

18:15–19:15
Maria Florutau (University of Oxford)
The role of the jury in shaping the prize essay genre in the Netherlands in the second half of the eighteenth century

19:30 Conference dinner

Thursday, 14 July
(Venue: Villa Engler, Altensteinstraße 2, 14195 Berlin-Dahlem)

10:00–11:00
Martin Gierl (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
Organizing science: prize contests in Göttingen and the case of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

11:00–12:00
Rita Krueger (Temple University, Philadelphia)
Constructing useful knowledge: essay contests in Habsburg Bohemia and Moravia

12:00–14:00 Lunch break

14:00–15:00
Nicola Miller (University College London)
Competing to define the future: prize contests in independence-era Spanish America

15:00–16:00
Béla Kapossy (EPFL, Lausanne)
‘The spirit of legislation’: the Bernese prize essay competition of 1764

16:00–16:30 Coffee break

16.30–17:30
Juliane Engelhardt (University of Copenhagen)
From science to practice: the role of prize contests in academies and patriotic societies in the Danish-German-Norwegian composite monarchy

17:30–18:30
Kelsey Rubin-Detlev (University of Southern California, Los Angeles)
Popularisation and prestige in the staging of prize contests at the St Petersburg Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1777–1802

19:00 Conference dinner

Friday, 15 July
(Venue: Villa Engler, Altensteinstraße 2, 14195 Berlin-Dahlem)

10:00–11:00
Maria Susana Seguin (Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier/ENS Lyon)
Prizes and awards at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, 1700–1750

11:00–12:00
Iwan-Michelangelo D’Aprile (Universität Potsdam)
The transformation of academic prize contests in the aftermath of the French Revolution

12:00–13:30 Lunch break

13:30–14:15
Final discussion

Kontakt

emilia.sophie.moreno@hotmail.com

https://www.sfb-episteme.de/en/veranstaltungen/Vorschau/2022/a07-prize-contests.html
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