Diderot and European Culture

A conference arranged by Frédéric Ogée, Université Paris 7–Denis Diderot, Anthony Strugnell, University of Hull, and Peter H. Reill, UCLA

Denis Diderot has long been recognized as a central figure in European intellectual and artistic life—both as an imbiber of innovative ideas and practices and, in turn, as a promoter of radically new perceptions. This colloquium will take this dialectic forward by engaging with previously little-explored areas of Diderot’s work and examining his encounters, within a European as well as a more specifically English context, with epistemology, the interface between philosophy and fiction, artistic practice, scientific discourse, the emerging discourse on race, translation, historiography, and orientalism. The aim will be to identify new links between these diverse aspects of his work by setting them critically within a European context, and to recognize in his writings, less the manifestation of a discrete and originally literary and intellectual figure, than a highly signifying nexus within the evolving cultural forces of his time and beyond.
 
 

Conference Program

Friday, April 12

9:30 a.m. • coffee

10:00 a.m. • conference opening

Peter H. Reill, UCLA
Welcoming Remarks

Frédéric Ogée, Université Paris 7–Denis Diderot
Anthony Strugnell, University of Hull
Introduction

SESSION 1 ——

Chaired by Stephen Werner, UCLA

Andrew Curran, Wesleyan University
        Diderot and the Encyclopédie’s Construction of Humankind

Marian Hobson, Queen Mary, University of London
        Diderot and Underground Science

John C. O’Neal, Hamilton College
        Diderot and the Enlightenment’s Poetics of Confusion in the Lettre sur les aveugles

1:00 p.m. • lunch

2:30 p.m. • SESSION 2 ——

Chaired by Frédéric Ogée, Université Paris 7 –Denis Diderot

Srinivas Aravamudan, Duke University
        Talking Jewels and Other Oriental Seductions

Nicholas Cronk, Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford
        Reading Hobbes in Jacques le fataliste

4:00 p.m. • reception

Saturday, April 13

9:30 a.m. • coffee

10:00 a.m. • SESSION 3 ——

Chaired by Byron R. Wells, Wake Forest University

Frédéric Ogée, Université Paris 7–Denis Diderot
        Diderot and Richardson

Anthony Strugnell University of Hull
        Diderot and the Rewriting of English History

12:00 noon • lunch

1:30 p.m. • SESSION 4 ——

Chaired by Anthony Strugnell, University of Hull

Julie Candler Hayes, University of Richmond
        Diderot and (the) English

Daniel Brewer, University of Minnesota
        Diderot and the Culture of Belatedness

Roundtable Discussion ——

Registration Information

Diderot and European Culture
—— April 12-13, 2002 ——



Registration deadline:
April 5, 2002.
Please be aware that space at the Clark is limited and that registration closes when capacity is reached.

Fees: UC faculty & staff: $15; students with id: no charge; others: $25.
Fees cover lunches, refreshments, and advance copies of papers.*

*On the Internet or by mail (please see above).

Address all inquiries to the Center: Phone: 310-206-8552
E-mail:
Please call a week ahead to arrange for wheelchair access.

Registration Form
Diderot and European Culture
—— April 12-13, 2002 ——
 
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Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies
310 Royce Hall, UCLA
Box 951404
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