The Printing Press in the Age of the Enlightenment

Eighteenth century European intellectuals are often depicted populating salones, coffee houses or scientific academies while sharing breakthroughs or in animating controversial debates. Clearly, however, the Enlightenment so invested in oral modes of information sharing was equally relying on the old fashion print technology. Over two centuries after Gutenberg, printed books were no longer the sophisticated commodities that created so much astonishment and expectations in the late fifteenth century. On the contrary they were becoming a common object that the emerging bourgeoisies would widely consume and display to assert their social status and their belonging to the expanding republic of letters.

This seminar will explore the role that the largely stabilized printing technology had in disseminating and coagulating the new trends of scientific and philosophic inquiry. Furthermore, it will explore the political and institutional constraints in which the print industry operated a moment before the absolutist state experienced its downfall.

LV-Nr.: 3131 L 113

Mi. 10-12 Uhr

Raum: H 2051

Beginn: 19.04.2023

Format: Hybrid