Rethinking the Republic of Letters

Humanism, l’Esprit Philosophique, and the Encyclopédie

Citation:

Edelstein, Dan. “Humanism, l’Esprit Philosophique, and the Encyclopédie.” Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts 1, no. 1 (May 1, 2009): http://rofl.stanford.edu/node/27.

Issue:

Volume 1, Issue 1

Author:

Dan Edelstein

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roflv01i01_Edelstein_072009.pdf

Along with the King of France, the pope, salon- and theater-goers, duelists, alchemists, and disgraced finance ministers, the Republic of Letters comes in for bitingly satirical treatment in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters (1721).

Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s Republic of Letters

Citation:

Soll, Jacob. “Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s Republic of Letters.” Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts 1, no. 1 (May 1, 2009): http://rofl.stanford.edu/node/28.

Issue:

Volume 1, Issue 1

Author:

Jacob Soll

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roflv01i01_Soll_071609.pdf

Few figures better represent the world of scholarship at the turn of the seventeenth century than Bernard de Montfaucon, the French maurist monk and antiquarian who lived from 1655–1741.[1] Montfaucon was trained in ancient languages and philology, and was an avid collector of manus

Founding a Scientific Academy: Gender, Patronage and Knowledge in Early Eighteenth-Century Milan

Citation:

Findlen, Paula. “Founding a Scientific Academy: Gender, Patronage and Knowledge in Early Eighteenth-Century Milan.” Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts 1, no. 1 (May 1, 2009): http://rofl.stanford.edu/node/33.

Issue:

Volume 1, Issue 1

Author:

Paula Findlen

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roflv01i01_Findlen_071609.pdf

In 1722 Sir Thomas Dereham (ca. 1678-1739), a member of the Royal Society since 1720, wrote a series of letters to the Royal Society secretary James Jurin about the state of Italian science.

A Sketch Map of a Lost Continent: The Republic of Letters

Citation:

Grafton, Anthony. “A Sketch Map of a Lost Continent: The Republic of Letters.” Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts 1, no. 1 (May 1, 2009): http://rofl.stanford.edu/node/34.

Issue:

Volume 1, Issue 1

Author:

Anthony Grafton

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roflv01i01_Grafton_071609.pdf

This essay offers a historical traveler’s report on a strange imaginary land, one that had few of the distinctive marks by which we usually identify a state. It did have a distinctive name: Respublica literarum, the Republic of Letters.

Standing in St. Petersburg Looking West, Or, Is Backwardness All There Is?

Citation:

Marker, Gary. “Standing in St. Petersburg Looking West, Or, Is Backwardness All There Is?.” Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts 1, no. 1 (May 1, 2009): http://rofl.stanford.edu/node/35.

Issue:

Volume 1, Issue 1

Author:

Gary Marker

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roflv01i01_Marker_071609.pdf

In the beginning there was backwardness. Before Orientalism and subaltern studies there was backwardness. Before Homi Baba and hybridity, there was backwardness. Before post-coloniality, naturalization, theatricality, modernization theory, imbrication, hydraulic societies, Dependistas, the IMF, or the Asiatic mode of production, there was backwardness.

Digging for Antiquities with Diplomats: Gisbert Cuper (1644-1716) and his Social Capital

Citation:

Chen, Bianca. “Digging for Antiquities with Diplomats: Gisbert Cuper (1644-1716) and his Social Capital.” Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts 1, no. 1 (May 1, 2009): http://rofl.stanford.edu/node/36.

Issue:

Volume 1, Issue 1

Author:

Bianca Chen

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roflv01i01_Chen_072309.pdf

Gisbert Cuper’s career and his rise to fame allow us to examine the working practices of the Republic of Letters and reconsider how to judge a scholar’s merits in a historical context other than our own.

The Ancient Constitution and the Genealogist: Momigliano, Pocock, and Peiresc’s Origines Murensis Monasterii (1618)

Citation:

Miller, Peter. “The Ancient Constitution and the Genealogist: Momigliano, Pocock, and Peiresc’s Origines Murensis Monasterii (1618).” Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts 1, no. 1 (May 1, 2009): http://rofl.stanford.edu/node/37.

Issue:

Volume 1, Issue 1

Author:

Peter Miller

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roflv01i01_Miller_071609.pdf

The “new” history of political thought and the “new” history of scholarship both began around the same time, in the first half of the 1950s. They also, both, took as key agents the long-despised “antiquary.” And, they focused on England in the seventeenth century.

The Kingdom of Politesse: Salons and the Republic of Letters in Eighteenth-Century Paris

Citation:

Lilti, Antoine. “The Kingdom of Politesse: Salons and the Republic of Letters in Eighteenth-Century Paris.” Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts 1, no. 1 (May 1, 2009): http://rofl.stanford.edu/node/38.

Issue:

Volume 1, Issue 1

Author:

Antoine Lilti

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roflv01i01_Lilti_071609.pdf

Historians usually consider the eighteenth century as the apogee of the cosmopolitan European Republic of Letters, with a French—or even Parisian—center. The “Republic of Letters” was not, however, a phrase central to the Enlightenment lexicon, especially in France.

Slander and Glory in the Republic of Letters: Diderot and Seneca Confront Rousseau

Citation:

Russo, Elena. “Slander and Glory in the Republic of Letters: Diderot and Seneca Confront Rousseau.” Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts 1, no. 1 (May 1, 2009): http://rofl.stanford.edu/node/40.

Issue:

Volume 1, Issue 1

Author:

Elena Russo

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roflv01i01_Russo_071609.pdf

On September 1768, Diderot wrote a long and effusive letter to his friend the sculptor Etienne-Maurice Falconet, who was in Saint Petersburg, entrusted by Catherine II with the task of creating a bronze equestrian statue of Peter the Great.

The Nature of Early Eighteenth-Century Religious Radicalism

Citation:

Jacob, Margaret . “The Nature of Early Eighteenth-Century Religious Radicalism.” Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts 1, no. 1 (May 1, 2009): http://rofl.stanford.edu/node/42.

Issue:

Volume 1, Issue 1

Author:

Margaret Jacob

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roflv01i01_Jacob_071609.pdf

In 1981 I argued that the period of the early Enlightenment, bound roughly from the 1680s to the 1720s, had produced within the Republic of Letters a set of ideas and attitudes, as well as texts, that were by any standard as radical as those we associate with the High Enlightenment.

Rethinking the Republic of Letters

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