De Achttiende Eeuw. Jaargang 44
(2012)– [tijdschrift] Documentatieblad werkgroep Achttiende eeuw– Auteursrechtelijk beschermd
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Centre and Periphery in the Enlightenment: Introduction
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Understanding the conference theme from a primarily geographical perspective, a first group of papers focused on eighteenth century mobility and travel.Ga naar voetnoot3 East-central European historians moved to Göttingen (in the paper by Monika Baar), the Portuguese court fled to Brazil during the Napoleonic wars (in Vanda Anastacio's talk), European intellectuals sailed to India (in Hanco Jürgens' paper), Johan Reinhold Forster travelled to the Pacific (in the talk by Marja van Tilburg), the Van Hogendorp brothers went to the east (in Edwin van Meerkerk's paper), and European merchants sailed to Deshima and Canton (while local floating barbershops travelled between ships, in the keynote lecture by Lissa Roberts). The mobility of people during the Enlightenment contributed to the travel of ideas. The conference papers made clear that centre and periphery, even understood as geographical categories, are perpetually shifting according to the movement of the speaking subject. Janneke Weijermars and Krisztina Lajosi discussed the problem of centre and periphery from the perspective of the arts. Lajosi analysed the rise of the classical style using a cultural historical perspective. In her presentation Weijermars used the concept of ‘Enlightenment imperialism’ to describe the attempts by the Northern Netherlands to culturally dominate the Southern Netherlands during the existence of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815-1830).Ga naar voetnoot4 In a second group of papers, the topic of centre-periphery was understood as a rhetorical category. Ivo Nieuwenhuis described how the Dutch author-journalist Pieter van Woensel used satire to position himself as an insider as well as a critical outsider relative to the mainstream Dutch Enlightenment. One panel was devoted to the problem of centre and periphery in political discourse. The counter-Enlightenment could for instance be viewed as representing the periphery of Enlightenment political thought, certainly in the contemporary historiography of the Enlightenment.Ga naar voetnoot5 In his introduction to the panel, Joris van Eijnatten problematized the notion of Enlightenment as well as counter-Enlightenment, arguing that both concepts were developed in the nineteenth century and were therefore anachronisms. Carolina Armenteros analysed the understudied post-revolutionary thought of monarchical political intellectuals in France. Annelien de Dijn criticised | |
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the progressive and democratic interpretation of, among others, Jonathan Israel, of eighteenth-century Enlightenment thought and argued instead for a more conservative reading of Enlightenment classics such as the works of Montesquieu and Voltaire. Erica Manucci explained how the classical ideal of the intellectual retreat still exerted a powerful attraction on Enlightenment thinkers. Did being a true intellectual require one to place oneself on the periphery? Alexandra Gieser and Kocku von Stuckrad, in the last panel, drew attention to the often neglected and - in modern-day scientific eyes - peripheral esoteric and religious ‘fringe’ of the Enlightenment. In the closing discussion the problem of categorization and the Enlightenment was discussed. Categories - including centre-periphery, or ‘the’ Enlightenment - of course obscure understanding as much as they shape it and stimulate it. Categories contain implicit narratives, e.g. the Enlightenment as a presentist, teleological narrative. How can we move away from all these centre-periphery categories? Several directions in which future Enlightenment research could go were suggested. First of all, more emphasis could be placed on centripetal and centrifugal forces, i.e. on movement rather than static categories. Cañizares-Esguerra argued for a study of the Enlightenment in terms of a local history placed in a transnational and a global context. Lissa Roberts also applauded the global approach and suggested we should not primarily establish comparisons between different parts of the world but rather focus on global networks of exchange, interconnections, and the multiplicity of centres of local knowledge and accumulation. Enlightenment scholars should, in addition, focus more on the interaction between the economic and the cultural aspects of the Enlightenment, suggested the participants in the final discussion. The study of the aesthetics of knowledge was also mentioned as a promising line of research. This direction implied moving beyond the analytic tradition of categorization, classification, and the primacy of reason, towards more embodied, aesthetic forms of knowing. Finally Carolina Armenteros questioned the teleological narrative of Enlightenment that makes no room for history's ‘losers’. A selection of the conference papers have been turned into articles for this special issue of De Achttiende Eeuw. In these articles the theme of centre and periphery is approached from different angles. In the first article Lissa Roberts argues for a kind of ‘double history’ that is needed to put material things in proper perspective. On the one hand, the history of science needs to be developed as an integrated part of global history, according to Roberts. But ‘global history’ | |
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should not be taken to mean an approach that entails comparisons between different parts of the globe, especially not narratives that are structured as stories of ‘the West and the rest’. Rather, we would do well to concentrate on the ways in which often globally extensive networks of exchange were constructed and operated, with an investigative emphasis on interconnections. While such an approach cannot ignore the unequal distribution of power, which grew out of and exerted so much influence on how this history developed, it invites us to replace unquestioning talk of centre-periphery relations with an investigation of multiple local centres of accumulation and translation, where markets teeming with accumulated resources, expertise and interests combined to give direction and substance to the global circulation of knowledge and know-how. At the same time, according to Roberts, we need to account for the ways in which the actors themselves experienced and projected the unfolding history in which they were taking part. Edwin van Meerkerk in the second article looks at the colonial ideals of the brothers Dirk and Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, especially concerning the problem of race relations. According to Van Meerkerk, the brothers were unique in the late eighteenth-century debate because of their emphasis on the economic and political advantages for colonial possessions of the amalgation of different races. Their personal experiences and the people who influenced their ideas had set them on a course towards an unprecedented proposal: to create a colony in which hybridization was the official policy, thus closing the gap between centre and periphery. It is obvious that none of these ideas were ever put into practice in either Holland or France. What remains intriguing, however, is the fact that these two men who were no great philosophers, yet came up with such utopian notions. Ivo Nieuwenhuis' article is on the Dutch navy physician Pieter van Woensel (1747-1808) who represents according to Van Nieuwenhuis ‘the eccentric Enlightenment’. With his ironic tone, ambivalent self-image and overall attempt to appear as an oddball in the eyes of the public, Van Woensel at first sight seems to be nothing more than a curiosity, one of the many colourful figures of the eighteenth century. Nieuwenhuis, however, argues in his article that he stands for a critical position within the public domain that actually matters very much to definitions of the Enlightenment. He is an outsider on the inside. His eccentricity is largely a pose, his stance towards the Enlightenment ambivalent. As such, his case forms a valuable source of insight for both students of the Enlightenment and cultural historians in general. | |
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Carolina Armenteros' article focuses on French conservative monarchical thought in the revolutionary and post-revolutionary era, a subject that she contends has not sufficiently been studied by historians of political thought. While the literature on republicanism has increased greatly in recent years, comparatively little scholarship exists on monarchism as a political ethic and theory during the decades that followed the French Revolution. Monarchism is the political theory that according to Armenteros ‘cannot define itself, or rather, that cannot define itself without betraying itself. It is the great political marginal, the tacit consensus that hovers timidly, and for the most part silently, on the periphery of the public sphere.’ In her article Armenteros treats more or less well-known authors such as Pierre-Simon Ballanche, Louis de Bonald, François-René de Chateaubriand, Madame de Genlis, Félicité de Lamennais, Joseph de Maistre as well as lesser-known monarchists. The central theme that united this diverse group of royalist intellectuals, according to Armenteros, was a unique notion of political providentialism that situated itself at the intellectual peripheries of Enlightenment thought. The final article, by Alicia C. Montoya and Wyneke de Gelder, studies the impact of the writings of the London-based French governess Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in one of the Enlightenment's geographical peripheries, eastern Europe, and Russia in particular. Leprince de Beaumont, according to the authors, offers an intriguing case because her pedagogical works appear to have enjoyed enormous international recognition, both within and outside France, yet are never mentioned in standard accounts of the Enlightenment. This article contends that if we look at the Enlightenment from the viewpoint of reception rather than production, taking into account what academic discourse has largely taken as the peripheries of the Enlightenment, a new picture emerges. In reassessing the impact of Beaumont in one ‘peripheral’ region, Montoya and De Gelder focus specifically on how her works were perceived to illustrate a synthesis between a religious worldview and Enlightenment ideals of social utility, and participated in local societal and political debates, i.e. actively engaged in the public sphere. The article thereby argues - as do the others in this special issue of De Achttiende Eeuw - that centre and periphery are, finally, relative notions, or ideological constructs that need to be historicized if we are to really understand how the Enlightenment worked for those who participated in it. |
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