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Le défi des Lumières

Enjeux intellectuels et politiques

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Published on Wednesday, June 03, 2026

Abstract

The winds of scholars’ and society’s favour toward the Enlightenment have shifted. The uplifting narrative of progress attributed to the Enlightenment has long underpinned liberal societies, particularly in the West, but in recent years it has come under fierce criticism from postcolonial perspectives, political fringes, and some eighteenth-century specialists. The conference will reflect the contemporary context in which Enlightenment research is conducted. Its aim is to move beyond a simplistic for-or-against positioning on the Enlightenment and to emphasise the complexity of both the Enlightenment as a historical phenomenon and its legacy for the present and the future.

Announcement

Programme

On Thursday, only on-site participation is possible.

Wednesday, 10 June, at the GHIP

8 rue du Parc-Royal, 75003 Paris

9.00 Welcome and introduction

  • Klaus Oschema (GHIP), Christine Zabel (GHIP), Welcome
  • Daniel Fulda (Univ. Halle-Wittenberg), Introduction. Political Usage of the Enlightenment – Should Scholars Be Concerned With It ?

Panel 1 : Did the Enlightenment promote Equality or Elitism ? // Les Lumières ont-elles fait la promotion de l’égalité ou de l’élitisme ?

  • Chair : Christophe Martin (Sorbonne Univ.), Penelope Corfield (Univ. London)
  • 9.45 Halima Ouanada (Univ. Tunis), Les Lumières à l’épreuve du xxie siècle. Tensions et héritages critiques

10.30 Coffee break

11.00 Yuki Takaki (Univ. Halle-Wittenberg), Enlightenment and Equality. The Scope and Limits of Christian Thomasius’ Theory of Sociability

  • Ruoyi Yang (King’s College London), Paradox of Enlightened Despotism. From Christian Wolff’s »Oratio de Sinarum Philosophia Practica« to Voltaire’s »L’Orphelin de la Chine« 
  • Roey Reichert (Univ. Halle-Wittenberg), The Ends of Enlightenment. Political Visions from Kant to Contemporary Crisis

13.15 Lunch

14.30

  • Zornitsa L. Radeva (Univ. Mainz), The Ruses of Reason, Or Why Read »Enlightened« Histories of Logic Today ?
  • Pauline Pujo (Univ. Toulouse), Images, mots et dynastie des Lumières entre astronomie et politique. Réception, traduction et postérité allemande du »Commentaire sur l’Esprit des lois de Montesquieu« par l’idéologue Destutt de Tracy (1820-1924)

16.00 Coffee break

16.30

  • Silvia Manzo (Univ. La Plata), Rethinking the Civilization/Barbarism Opposition through Northern and Southern Perspectives. Past and Present
  • Valentina Denzel (Michigan State Univ.), Sade’s Enlightenment Philosophy and the Reappropriation of his Perspectives on Gender, Class, and Sexuality in 20th and 21st century-Francophone Feminist Literature

19.00 Public Evening Lecture at the GHIP

8 rue du Parc-Royal, 75003 Paris

Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink (Univ. Saarbrücken), L’héritage controversé de l’universalisme des Lumières.

Mises en cause et dynamiques transculturelles dans les cultures non-européennes et (post-) coloniales

Chair : Christine Zabel (GHIP)

Thursday, 11 June, at Sorbonne Université

Amphithéâtre Quinet, 46 rue Saint-Jacques, 75005 Paris

Panel 2 : Enlightenment, Migration, and Global Justice // Les Lumières, la migration et la justice globale

Chair : Chunjie Zhang (Univ. of California), Florence Magnot (Sorbonne Nouvelle)

9.00

  • Ephraim Levinson (Univ. Bristol), Translation as an Enlightenment Discourse
  • Simon Mills (Newcastle Univ.), Islamic Learning in the European Enlightenment. The Case of Abū al-Fidā‘, the »Enlightened Prince« 

10.30 Coffee break

11.00

  • Morgan Golf-French (Turin Humanities Programme), Enlightenment Racial Thought from the Classroom to Political Practice
  • Ann Thomson (EUI Florence), »Enlightenment values« and Islamophobia. Can Revisiting Enlightenment Orientalism Help to Counter Exclusionist Discourses ?

12.30 Lunch

14.15

  • Julia Nitz (Univ. Halle-Wittenberg), Colonial Archives and Enlightenment Knowledge Production in Hazel Carby’s Imperial Intimacies (2019)
  • Thervilson Froius Mulatre (Univ. Québec), Des »Lumières noires« entre l’historiographie et l’esprit des Lumières

15.45 Coffee break

Panel 3 : Did »the Enlightenment« ever exist ? // »Les Lumières« ont-elles vraiment existé ?

Chair : Daniel Fulda (Univ. Halle-Wittenberg), Maciej Forycki (Univ. Poznan)

  • 16.00 Penelope Corfield (Univ. of London), Great Britain’s Experimental Enlightenment Reconsidered
  • 16.45 Jonathan C.D. Clark (Univ. of Kansas), The Future of Enlightenment Studies

18.00 Public evening lecture at the Collège de France

Amphithéâtre Maurice Halbwachs, 11 place Marcelin Berthelot, 75005 Paris

  • Rolando Minuti (Univ. Florence), Histoire, enjeux et actualité du concept de Lumières
  • Chair : Antoine Lilti (Collège de France)

Friday, 12 June

 at the Institut Bibliothèque Polonaise de Paris, 6 Quai d‘Orléans, 75004 Paris

9.00

  • Daniela Tinková (Charles Univ. Prague), Les Lumières dans l’Europe centrale multinationale et catholique. Les Lumières de qui, pour qui ?
  • Christoph Gnant (Univ. Vienna), Josephinism Today ? Reflections on the Long-Term Effects of »Territorial Statism« on the Austrian State
  • Nicolás Bas Martin (Univ. València), Y a-t-il eu un siècle des Lumières en Espagne, ou plutôt un réformisme éclairé ?

11.15 Coffee break

11.45

  • Alexandra Sfoini (National Hellenic Research Foundation), Entre Orient et Occident. Vocabulaire et imaginaire des Lumières néohelléniques
  • Volodymyr Sklokin (Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv), The Russian Imperial Enlightenment. Between Historiographic Construction and Historical Reality

13.15 Lunch

14.15

  • Silvia Tatti (Sapienza Univ. Rome), The Persistence of the Idea of a Republic of Letters

Beyond 19th-Century Nationalism

Closing discussion

Practical information

Registration for in-person participation : event@dhi-paris.fr

Registration for participation via Zoom

The following parts of the conference will be accessible online :

Organisation

Co-organisers, alongside ISECS (represented by its President Daniel Fulda) :

German Historical Institute Paris (Christine Zabel) ; Chaire d’Histoire des Lumières, xviiiexxie siècle, Collège de France (Antoine Lilti) ; Sorbonne Université/Société Française d’Étude du Dix-huitième Siècle (Christophe Martin) ; Institut Bibliothèque Polonaise de Paris (Maciej Forycki) ; Sorbonne Nouvelle (Florence Magnot-Ogilvy) ; University of California (Chunjie Zhang)

Subjects

Places

  • Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris, Institut historique allemand, Hôtel Duret-de-Chevry - 8 rue du Parc-Royal
    Paris, France (75003)

Event attendance modalities

Hybrid event (on site and online)


Date(s)

  • Wednesday, June 10, 2026
  • Thursday, June 11, 2026
  • Friday, June 12, 2026

Information source

  • Carla-Maëlys Barboutie
    courriel : presse [at] dhi-paris [dot] fr

License

CC0-1.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

To cite this announcement

« Le défi des Lumières », Conference, symposium, Calenda, Published on Wednesday, June 03, 2026, https://doi.org/10.58079/16brk

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