We are delighted to announce the official beginning of the New Voices series of talks for Summer 2022, which will focus on Du Châtelet. You are warmly invited to the first presentation, which is by Andrea Reichenberger on “Émilie Du Châtelet as a Key Figure of the European Enlightenment: Challenges and Perspectives for Research and Teaching Practices.” This online talk will be hosted on Zoom on the 19th of May at 5PM CET.

Andrea Reichenberger works on history and philosophy of science, currently at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Hagen, Germany. She is especially interested in women’s contributions to logic, mathematics and computer science, because it is of the utmost importance to show (especially to younger generations) the impact of female researchers to the history of philosophy and science. Andrea has published numerous articles on this subject in journals, edited volumes, and encyclopedias. These include studies on Émilie Du Châtelet, Grete Hermann, and Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider. Previously, she worked on research projects including the DFG research project Thought Experiment, Metaphor, Model at the Institute for Philosophy I at the Ruhr University Bochum. She has also worked at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists (HWPS) at Paderborn University. Her doctoral dissertation was published by Springer as Émilie Du Châtelets Institutions physiques in 2016.

Abstract of the talk: Émilie Du Châtelet (1706–1749) is among those women who illuminated the Enlightenment through their writings. Through their intellectual salons, women played a pivotal role in spreading the ideas of the European Enlightenment. But Du Châtelet accomplished still more than that. She was among the French mathematicians, physicists and philosophers who revolutionized science and altered the way we look at the world. In Cirey, she established a research center which became part of an elite network, linked to the European academies. She transformed and modernized the physics of Newton’s Principia, and laid a solid foundation for the principle of the conservation of energy. Her thoughts found their way into the Encyclopédie, and her engagement in favor of human reason played an important role in the intellectual movements shaping the face of Enlightenment philosophy. This talk will address some of the challenges for current Du Châtelet scholarship concerning research and teaching practices. These challenges concern, for example, a possible new critical edition of Du Châtelet’s Principia-commentary (research) and the question of the teaching practice of classical mechanics, its philosophy, and its history (science education).

I hope many of you will be able to join us for an interesting talk and a friendly and engaged discussion!  If you have registered for the New Voices talk series previously, you do not need to register again. If you haven’t registered before, please register here: contact@historyofwomenphilosophers.org (an empty email with ‘New Voices Talk Series’ in the subject is fine).

New Voices is an international group for scholars working on women in the history of philosophy at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. New Voices intends to interconnect and further the work of scholars in the field of Women Philosophers in the History of Philosophy. New Voices is currently organized by Clara Carus, Jil Muller, and Aaron Wells, with the help of Violeta Milicevic and the rest of the team at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists (directed by Ruth Hagengruber). For further information about New Voices or to join New Voices please visit:
https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/projects/new-voices-on-women-in-the-history-of-philosophy/Talk