Enfilade

France, Great Britain, Ireland:
Cultural Transfers & the Circulation of Knowledge in the Age of Enlightenment
University of Limerick, 25-26 June 2010

Proposals due by 29 March 2010

In 2008 the Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society, the British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, and La Société Française d’Étude du Dix-Huitième siècle launched a joint research programme on cultural transfers between their three countries in the Enlightenment period. This initiative has resulted in conferences at L’Université Paris Diderot – Paris VII (in 2008) and the University of York (in 2009).

The third of these conferences will be hosted by the Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society and will take place at the University of Limerick, Ireland, from 25 to 26 June 2010. The conference will run in parallel with the Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society’s annual conference. Proposals for twenty-minute papers are invited for papers (in Irish, English or French) on the theme of the conference, but particularly on

• the individuals and groups involved in transfers, who could be called the ‘importers’ or ‘purveyors’ of foreign ideas and who acted as cultural intermediaries; these may include politicians, diplomats, travellers, savants, authors, artists, booksellers
• the transfer of cultural items – books, newspapers, works of art, and other objects – and their impact
• the transfer of literary, philosophical, political or aesthetic models in processes of cultural legitimisation
• transfer processes through imitation, translation or adaptation
• the effect of such transfers on the construction of national identities throughout the century: the invention of a past, a language, or a national history; it could be interesting to examine transfers in relation to mutual power play, wars and imperialist ambitions.

Postgraduate students are particularly encouraged to offer papers. Proposals should be submitted (preferably by email) to the conference organiser (david.fleming@ul.ie) before Friday, 29 March 2010. Proposals should include the title of the paper and a 250-word abstract. Prospective speakers will be notified of a decision by 30 April 2010.