INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ÉMILIE DU CHÂTELET

Paris, November 17th and 18th, 2017

Archives diplomatiques (La Courneuve) and Archives nationales (Paris)

The Société Voltaire, Les Cahiers haut-marnais and the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists (Paderborn University, Germany) co-organize an international conference on the works of the French Enlightenment philosopher Émilie Du Châtelet. Being the second international conference in 2017 on this exceptional thinker – following the conferences “Émilie Du Châtelet und die deutsche Aufklärung” (Potsdam 2006) and “Époque Émilienne” (Paderborn, 2017) – the forthcoming event documents once more the decisive progress made by Du Châtelet scholarship in recent years.

Émilie Du Châtelet, whose works have been widely neglected until the mid-20th century, is now increasingly recognized as one of the central figures of the early European Enlightenment. The rediscovering of the once famous and influential philosophe has been particularly accelerated during the last years by the discovery of by then unknown manuscripts in 2010. This has enabled completely new research on her life and work, thus opening new historical and interpretive perspectives. Consequently, the contributions to the conference deal with the full scale of research on her work. The topics of the talks range from the edition of newly accessible manuscripts through new perspectives on some of her texts to the fate of her son, an important figure in the beginning French Revolution.

Speakers include:

Élisabeth Badinter, Anne-Lise Rey, Natalia Speranskaja, Eszter Kovacs, Ruth Hagengruber, Andrew Brown, Stefanie Ertz, Ana Rodrigues, Elena Muceni, Mylène Vangeon, Marie Fontaine, Maria Susana Seguin, Veronique Le Ru, Gianni Paganini, Michel Toulmonde, Linda Gil, Fritz Nagel, John Iverson

Organizers: Andrew Brown, Ulla Kölving, Alain Morgat, Samuel Mourin

Locations:

November 17th:

Centre des Archives diplomatiques du ministère des Affaires étrangères
3 rue Suzanne Masson, 93120 La Courneuve
RER-B, La Courneuve-Aubervilliers

November 18th:

Archives nationales, Hôtel de Soubise, 60 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, 75003 Paris