CSPT News: Switzerland
Switzerland celebrated 1998 as both the 150th anniversary of the Constitution of 1848, which transformed the confederation into a federal state, and the bicentenary of 1798, the year of the beginning of the Swiss Republic. It is impossible to enumerate here all the public events, shows, colloquiums and publications relating to these two important political events. For enquiries, contact: Groupe '98, Office federal de la culture, Hallwylstr. 15, 3003 Bern.The results of the February-March 1997 Los Angeles colloquium Reconceptualizing Nature, Science, and Aesthetics are being published by Slatkine (Geneva, 1998) in the new series "Travaux sur la Suisse des Lumières, no. 1". The second American-Swiss colloquium took place on October 7-11, 1998, in Italian Switzerland this time, at the Centro Stefano Franscini d'Ascona. The theme was "Republican Virtue." The results are to be published next year. These two great colloquiums are testimony to the success of the collaboration between Swiss and American researchers.
A "Fondation de Felice" was recently constituted for the study of the Yverdon Encyclopedia (1770-1780), that monument of Swiss Enlightenment which coincided with and completed the work of Diderot and d'Alembert. Benjamin Constant's Principes de politique (1806-1810 version) is finally available in paperback from Hachette-Pluriel, with a preface by T. Todorov and an introduction by E. Hofmann, the first editor of this important treatise. Etienne Hofmann, Université de Lausanne