La Société canadienne d’étude du dix-huitième siècle est heureuse d'annoncer le lancement d'un nouveau cycle de conférences et de tables rondes en ligne. Ces événements visent à offrir une opportunité de se connecter avec la communauté académique travaillant sur le dix-huitième siècle et à prolonger nos échanges scientifiques au-delà de notre traditionnelle conférence en présentiel. L'objectif de cette série en 2024-25 sera de discuter des notions d'équité, de diversité et d'inclusion, et d'explorer la manière dont celles-ci se rapportent aux études du dix-huitième siècle. Chacune de nos sessions sera organisée autour d'un thème et prendra la forme d'une table ronde au cours de laquelle les participants pourront discuter, débatre et partager leurs points de vue sur ces questions.
Session 1 - The Enlightenment and the idea of the University
Date: Vendredi 1er novembre 2024
Heure: 12h00 – 13h30 (heure normale de l'est)
The purpose of this first online round table is to open a conversation about the relationship between the university and the Enlightenment. How do these two terms speak to each other? Can the university embody Enlightenment values about emancipation and social progress or are those values in contradiction with the idea that institutional neutrality is essential to its mission and the pursuit of knowledge? Our panelists will discuss how they perceive the role of activism, advocacy, and social justice in the university setting and how these intersect with their teaching and research.
Participant.e.s:
Brian Cowan (McGill University), Kerry Sinanan (University of Winnipeg), Sophia Rosenfeld (University of Pennsylvania), Eugenia Zuroski (McMaster University).
RSVP (d'ici le 30 octobre): https://forms.gle/Bp7rd2N4pLLNz8ks7 (vous recevrez un lien par courriel un jour avant l'événement)
Session 2 - Thinking Equity, Diversity and Inclusion with the Enlightenment
Date: Vendredi 29 novembre 2024
Heure: 12h00 – 13h30 (heure normale de l'est)
This roundtable sets out to ask a provocative, if not a paradoxical question: how did 18th-century writers think of inclusion, equity and diversity, and how can their work help us to reflect on these topics today? For decades, scholars have continued to think about the predominance of a taxonomic approach within Enlightenment. On the other hand, scholars have also tried to highlight the radical and minor impulses within Enlightenment thought to rethink difference, diversity, and community. With this history of thought in mind, the roundtable sets out to ask how do we do EDI work in the afterlife of Enlightenment and within Enlightenment studies. What are some successful initiatives that scholarly societies since the eighteenth century have taken to honor diversity and inclusion? What do the failures of some other initiatives teach us today as we deliberate on our society's way forward?
Participant.e.s:
Katherine Binhammer (University of Alberta), Emily C. Friedman (Auburn University), Sal Nicolazzo (University of California, Davis), Surya Parekh (Binghamton University)
RSVP (d'ici le 28 novembre): https://forms.gle/iTUGuVp4BT3aNh8j7 (vous recevrez un lien par courriel un jour avant l'événement)
Session 3 - The Natural and the Social: Thinking About Diversity and Norms with the Enlightenment
Date: Vendredi 7 février 2025
Heure: 12h00 – 13h30 (heure normale de l'est)
The Enlightenment enterprise can be described as a search for the natural state of humanity, independent of the social orders that philosophers often criticized as arbitrary and unjust (e.g., social inequality, slavery as contrary to the laws of nature). While Enlightenment thinkers embraced the Christian notion of universal human nature, they also gave significant attention to the variability and diversity of humankind across time and space. Fictional texts of the period frequently juxtapose the natural and the social through thought experiments involving uneducated or "uncivilized" beings (e.g., the blind, the deaf, feral children, and so-called "savages"). To what extent did Enlightenment thought anticipate contemporary social definitions of gender, race, or disability? How should we approach these ideas today, especially in light of critiques highlighting that figures such as Montesquieu and Voltaire propagated racist views?
Session 4 – Enseigner les Lumières aujourd’hui
Date: Vendredi 28 mars 2025
Heure: 12h00 – 13h30 (heure normale de l'est)
