Conversation as Sharing: From the Individual Body to Networks of Communication

By Yusuke Wakazawa  Since my undergraduate days in the philosophy department, the idea and practice of conversation has underpinned my pursuit of intellectual history. Despite the commonly held association of philosophy with solitude, I have encountered many historical examples of philosophers who were active participants in social exchanges. As depicted in Plato’s dialogues, ancient Greeks…

Conference Report: ‘Crusoe at 300: Adaptations, Afterlives & Futures’

With the words “I was Born in the Year 1632, in the City of York” opening Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, it was only fitting that as we celebrate the 300th anniversary of this work Crusoe should come home to York. Organised by Dr Chloe Wigston Smith and Dr Gabriel Cervantes (University of Glasgow), the Centre for…

Conference Report: Small Things in the Eighteenth Century

By Holly Day On the 6th-7th June, CECS hosted the conference ‘Small Things in the Eighteenth Century,’ organised by Professor Beth Fowkes Tobin (University of Georgia), and our own Dr Chloe Wigston Smith, and funded by CECS and the British Academy. Brittany Scowcroft of CECS provided essential support. Speakers from several disciplines, including literary studies,…

Difficult Women in the Long Eighteenth Century

By Anna Mercer The 2015 CECS conference ‘Difficult Women 1680-1830’ in 2015 invited researchers to reflect on their own interpretation of the many ‘Difficult Women’ who lived in the long eighteenth century. Papers addressed many different female experiences and lifestyles, from religiously non-conformist women to women bearing arms The Difficult Women team consisted of four…

Conference Report: BARS Early Career and Postgraduate Conference

By Lilian Tabois PhD students Alice Rhodes and Lilian Tabois attended the biennial Early Career and Postgraduate Conference for the British Association of Romantic Studies (BARS). This year the conference was held at the University of Glasgow on 15-16 June, 2018. In addition to speakers from the UK, there were colleagues from Canada, France, Ireland, Japan,…

ASECS Conference Report: Orlando, 2018

Several CECS members attended the 49th annual conference for the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (ASECS). Held in Orlando, Florida, in March 2018, this year’s event was organized in conjunction with the Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (SEASECS). Staff members Alison O’Byrne, Jim Watt, and Chloe Wigston Smith, and PhD students Gabriella Barnard-Edmunds,…

Outings in Oxford: BSECS Annual Conference

Taking place the week before term gets underway, the first event on the calendar for the New Year is the BSECS Annual Conference, held at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, on 3rd-5th January. Several of our postgraduate students travelled up to Oxford to attend the society’s 47th annual meeting, which this year had the very timely…

Global CECS

In December 2017, CECS staff members Jim Watt and Alison O’Byrne attended the David Nichol Smith Seminar in Eighteenth-Century Studies in Brisbane, Australia on the theme Natures and Spaces of Enlightenment.  The event is organized every three years by the Australia and New Zealand Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and offered a wonderful opportunity to reconnect…

Conference Report: ‘Contested Inheritances 1750-1830’

By Elizabeth Bobbitt With the autumn term at an end (Happy Holidays, everyone!), we thought it would be a good opportunity to look back at some of the exciting events which CECS has hosted this term. Here is a review of the first conference which kicked off the academic year back in October. ‘Contested Inheritances…

British Studies Centre, Bardic News, and the Highlands

**********IMPORTANT OSSIAN CONFERENCE 18-19 APRIL 2015************** https://macphersonsossianiclegacy.wordpress.com/conference-heritage-festival-18th-19th-april-2015/ Emma Major reports: Earlier this month I went to the Highlands to bring a York Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies perspective to the very exciting new interdisciplinary MLitt in British Studies that Kristin Lindfield-Ott (English Literature) and Jim McPherson (History) have developed together with their colleagues archaeologist Simon Clarke…

CECS in Tokyo and in POETICA

I've just completed an essay 'Electrical Science and Della Cruscan Poetics in the 1790s' which will come out in a special issue of the journal POETICA vol. 82 pp.1-21, in December 2014. The essay is taken from my current research project on 'cultures of electricity' in the long eighteenth century. The journal special issues features selected papers…

Anglo-Scottish Relations

On 1 November 2014 CECS hosted a successful day conference on the topical theme of Anglo-Scottish Relations. Prompted by the Scottish independence referendum campaign, the conference explored the cultural, political and social connections between Scotland and England in the long eighteenth century. Our keynote speakers Professor Stana Nenadic (University of Edinburgh), Professor Michael Brown (University…

Jon Mee, the Royal Literary Fund and the Porcine Club

Jon Mee spoke at the conference 'Royal Literary Fund: Then and Now' held at the British Library 9th May 2014. Here he is discussing the infiltration of the Fund by John Reeves and his conservative friends from the Porcine Club. The full film of the event will be posted on the website of the Fund…

CECS Colloquium to celebrate the work of Harriet Guest

Our next event at CECS is 'Sound Words, Strange Tattoos and Unbounded Attachments: Celebrating the Works of Harriet Guest', on Saturday 17th May 2014, at the King's Manor, organised by Emma Major.  From A Form of Sound Words to South Pacific tattoos, and from Small Change to Unbounded Attachment, Professor Harriet Guest's work covers an extraordinary range of writers, themes,…

Rethinking the Grand Tour conference success

Posted by the conference organiser, Sarah Goldsmith. (Rather poor quality photos added by CMB.) The 8th March was a busy day for CECS. While Mary was at the Huntingdon Library, CECS was hosting a diverse array of papers at its own conference, Rethinking the Grand Tour: Questioning Cultures of Eighteenth-Century Travel. Rosemary Sweet kicked off…

Sacred and Secular Revolutions in California

On 7 and 8 March, I had the pleasure of taking part in a conference at the Huntington Library in California, called Sacred and Secular Revolutions: The Political and Spiritual Legacies of the Atlantic Enlightenment in the American Founding. The conference, which was co-sponsored by the Huntington Library and the Jack Miller Center in Philadelphia, brought…