Edited by | Theodore Besterman, Gregory S. Brown |
---|---|
Language | English and French |
Discipline | Enlightenment or the eighteenth century |
Publisher | Voltaire Foundation |
Published | 1955 |
No. of books | 550 |
Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment is a monographic series which has been published since 1955. [1] Originally edited by Theodore Besterman, [2] [3] the series now comprises more than 600 books - edited volumes and monographs, in either English or French - on diverse topics related to the Enlightenment or the eighteenth century. Successors to Besterman as editor have been Haydn Mason (1976 - 1998), Antony Strugnell (1998 - 2002), Jonathan Mallinson (2002 - 2015), and the current General Editor, Gregory S. Brown, who took up the post at the start of 2016. [1]
Previously the series was called Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (SVEC). In 2013, the name was changed to reflect the publication's global and interdisciplinary scope, which includes the Age of Enlightenment in the long Eighteenth Century and growing scholarly move to see the Enlightenment as a movement with worldwide impact and implications. [4] [5] Currently it is published by the Voltaire Foundation, an academic department in the Division of Humanities of the University of Oxford. Volumes prior to 1970 were published by the Institut et Musée Voltaire in Geneva. [2] In September 2017, the Voltaire Foundation announced a partnership with Liverpool University Press, which will take on responsibility for printing, warehousing, marketing and distribution of the series in 2018.
The series publishes one book per month. Topics include history, literature and comparative studies, cultural studies, philosophy, the history of the book, theatre, arts and visual studies, and gender studies. [6] Several of its books have won awards, such as the Society for the History of Natural History's Thackray Medal for Jean-Jacques Rousseau and botany: the salutary science (Alexandra Cook), [7] [8] and the Prix Marianne Roland Michel for The Profession of sculpture in the Paris 'Académie' (Tomas Macsotay). [9]
François-Marie Arouet was a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher (philosophe) and historian. Known by his nom de plumeM. de Voltaire, he was famous for his wit, in addition to his criticism of Christianity—especially of the Roman Catholic Church—and of slavery. Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion and separation of church and state.
Élie Catherine Fréron was a French literary critic and controversialist whose career focused on countering the influence of the philosophes of the French Enlightenment, partly through his vehicle, the Année littéraire. Thus Fréron, in recruiting young writers to counter the literary establishment became central to the movement now called the Counter-Enlightenment.
Julie; or, The New Heloise, originally entitled Lettres de Deux Amans, Habitans d'une petite Ville au pied des Alpes, is an epistolary novel by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, published in 1761 by Marc-Michel Rey in Amsterdam.
The Russian Age of Enlightenment was a period in the 18th century in which the government began to actively encourage the proliferation of arts and sciences, which had a profound impact on Russian culture. During this time, the first Russian university was founded, a library, a theatre, a public museum, as well as relatively independent press. Like other enlightened despots, Catherine the Great played a key role in fostering the arts, sciences, and education. The national Enlightenment in the Russian Empire differed from its Western European counterpart in that it promoted further modernization of all aspects of Russian life and was concerned with abolishing the institution of serfdom in Russia. Russian Enlightenment didn't promote any changes for separation of church and state. Pugachev's Rebellion and the French Revolution may have shattered the illusions of rapid political change, but the intellectual climate in Russia was altered irrevocably. Russia's place in the world was debated by Denis Fonvizin, Mikhail Shcherbatov, Andrey Bolotov, Alexander Radishchev, and Ivan Boltin; these discussions precipitated the divide between the radical, western, conservative and Slavophile traditions of Russian thought. Intellectuals often used the term prosveshchenie, promoting piety, erudition, and commitment to the spread of learning.
Michael Burden, FAHA, is an Australian musicologist, working in the United Kingdom. He was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2018.
André Chaumeix was a French academician, journalist, and literary critic. He was the fourteenth member elected to occupy seat 3 of the Académie française in 1930.
Theodore Deodatus Nathaniel Besterman was a Polish-born British psychical researcher, bibliographer, biographer, and translator. In 1945 he became the first editor of the Journal of Documentation. From the 1950s he devoted himself to studies of the works of Voltaire.
Jeanne-Françoise Quinault was a French actress, playwright and salon hostess.
The Voltaire Foundation is a research department of the University of Oxford, founded by Theodore Besterman in the 1970s. It publishes the definitive edition of the Complete Works of Voltaire, as well as Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, a monograph series devoted to the eighteenth century, and the correspondences (letters) of several key French thinkers. Directed by Professor Nicholas Cronk, it forms part of Oxford's Humanities Division.
Mary Diana Lee Sheriff was an American art historian, and W.R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Art History at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who specialized in eighteenth-century French art, decorative arts, gender studies, and material culture.
Socrates is a 1759 French play in three acts written by Voltaire. It is set in Ancient Greece during the events just before the trial and death of Greek philosopher Socrates. It is heavy with satire specifically at government authority and organized religion. The main characters besides the titular role is that of the priest Anitus, his entourage, Socrates' wife Xantippe, several judges, and some children Socrates has adopted as his own.
Edward M. Langille has been a professor of Modern Languages at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, since 1989. He specializes in the area of Enlightenment studies, and is one of Truro’s leading experts on Voltaire and his works. He is the North American correspondent for Société des études voltairiennes, an international organization that promotes and coordinates research, events and publications relating to Voltaire. Langille also specializes in studies of Acadian culture and history.
The Complete Works of Voltaire is the first critical edition of the totality of Voltaire's writings arranged chronologically. The project was started by the bibliographer and translator Theodore Besterman who only lived to see the first two volumes published. It is currently published by the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford.
Frédéric Ogée is a professor of English literature and art history at Université Paris Diderot. He is a specialist in the art and literature of the eighteenth century.
Des singularités de la nature is a book on natural history by the French philosopher and author Voltaire, first published in 1768. In it, he defends Preformationism, the idea that organisms develop from tiny versions of themselves. He defends the idea of a supreme being, and the idea that many features of the natural world have been made to benefit people, including noses for smelling and mountains for forming the landscape.
Charles-Édouard Levillain, FRHistS, MAE, is a French historian of early modern Britain and the Low Countries. He is currently professor of British history at Université Paris Cité.
Watriquet de Couvin was a fourteenth century French poet active between 1319 and 1329, and one of the few named authors of medieval French fabliaux. Among his other poems, he is known for his moralistic "dits".
Gregory Stephen Brown is an American historian specializing in French history and cultural History. His research regards "Enlightenment France and issues of 'self-fashioning,' performance and printing, patronage, and censorship." He is the General Editor and Senior Research Fellow at the Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford, for the Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment.
Stéphane Van Damme is historian and Professor of Early Modern History at the École normale supérieure in Paris, France.
Jael Henrietta Pye, born Jael Mendez, was an English writer. She is known to have authored four works, all of different genres: a piece of garden writing, a collection of poetry, a play, and a two-volume novel. She is perhaps best known for A Short Account, of the Principal Seats and Gardens, in and about Twickenham (1760), an account of the Twickenham homes of various Georgian eminences.