The Seminar meets monthly during the academic year and offers speakers an opportunity to present work in progress on various aspects of eighteenth-century European culture. The scholarly disciplines represented have included history, law, literature and language, philosophy, political science, music, and art.

In 2003 the Seminar hosted an international symposium on the transmission of classical texts in the eighteenth century. For the symposium program, please see:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/seminars/Special/Symposium2003/program.html

The Seminar's meetings in 2007-2008 will be devoted to the origins of the modern concept of free speech, both conceptually (e.g., what is the relationship between free speech and the period or idea of "the Enlightenment"?) and contextually (what conditions promoted its institutionalization?). The schedule of talks listed below demonstrates the "global" nature of the discourse on free speech in the eighteenth century. All of the talks will begin at 6:00 p.m. and take place on the Columbia University campus. Please contact the chair or the rapporteur concerning location.

Seminar: #417
Founded: 1962

Seminar Administration Chair: Elizabeth Powers Independent Scholar elizabethmpowers@verizon.net. Rapporteur: Nicole A. Seary Doctoral candidate, English and Comparative Literature Columbia University nas23@columbia.edu

Meetings September 20, 2007, Alison LaCroix, University of Chicago Law School A Positive Passion for the Public Good: Speech and Privacy in the Early American Republic October 11, 2007, John Christian Laursen, Department of Political Science, University of California, Riverside Cynicism and Cosmopolitanism at the Roots of Freedom of the Press: The Case of Denmark-Norway November 15, 2007, Douglas Smith, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle Banned Books: Alexander Radishchev's 'Journey from Petersburg to Moscow' and the Limits of Free Speech in the Reign of Catherine the Great December 13, 2007, Jonathan Israel, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey Radical Enlightenment 'Free Press' versus Moderate Enlightenment 'Free Press': The Clash of Two Antagonistic Conceptions January 31, 2008, John A. McCarthy, Max Kade Center for European and German Studies at Vanderbilt University, Nashville Morality and Politics: Free Thinkers, Free Speech, the Public Sphere, and the Foundations of a Deliberative Democracy in the German Enlightenment February 21, 2008, Javier Fernández Sebastián, Department of Political Science, Universidad del Pais Vasco in Bilbao, Spain Debating the Limits of Freedom of Speech during the Crisis of the Hispanic World: Liberty of the Press and Public Opinion March 27, 2008, Joris van Eijnatten, Department of History, VU University of Amsterdam, Netherlands Beyond Liberalism? A Typology of Arguments in Favour of the Freedom of the Press: England and the Netherlands, 1650-1800 April 17, 2008, Helena Rosenblatt, Department of History, Hunter College, New York Rousseau on Speech and Corruption: The Hazards of doux-commerce, from the First Discourse to the Social Contract