Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Voltaire Foundation @voltaire.ox.ac.uk · 21h

How universalist was Enlightenment thought? In our 2025 Besterman Lecture, Antoine Lilti (Collège de France) discusses 'The three languages of universalism: thinking globally in the Enlightenment’. Thursday 13 Nov, 5pm @magdalenoxford.bsky.social:
voltaire.ox.ac.uk/event/bester...

5 8

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Davide Cadeddu @davidecadeddu.bsky.social · 4d

The Betty Behrens Seminar resumes at Clare Hall, Cambridge, discussing the works by Benedetto Croce, José de Acosta and Robert Lowth, presented by R. Bellamy, G. Ramos and V. Davis |
@camhistory.bsky.social
@thecambridgeschool.bsky.social
@oxfordcih.bsky.social
@clarehallcambridge.bsky.social

1 4 1

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 5d

We've updated our three BlueSky starter packs for historians.

Our principal list now includes details of 130+ societies and networks, based in the UK and Ireland, that advance the study, research and promotion of history go.bsky.app/AZaYQDd

Please let us know if there are gaps.
#Skystorians 1/2

10 91 150

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Vincent Roy-Di Piazza @roydipiazza.bsky.social · Sep 8

Happy to share my new blog post on C18 French-Swedish relations for the Oxford Centre for Intellectual History blog @oxfordcih.bsky.social. French-Swedish diplomacy treated cultural alignment as a powerful vehicle for political change in Sweden👇
intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk/article/enli...

Enlightening the king: French-Swedish relations in the letters of Gustaf Philip Creutz with Gustav III

intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk

4 6

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Voltaire Foundation @voltaire.ox.ac.uk · 28d

Read all about our new digital edition, Oxford University Voltaire, in the newest blog by our research editors!

And ask your librarian for the free trial!

voltairefoundation.wordpress.com/2025/09/10/c...

Calling all librarians – sign up for Oxford University Voltaire free trial

The Voltaire Foundation and Liverpool University Press are delighted to announce that the new online edition of Voltaire’s complete works, including extensive scholarly apparatus, is now available …

voltairefoundation.wordpress.com

3 6

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Oxford Centre for Intellectual History @oxfordcih.bsky.social · Sep 4

Don’t miss our DPhil student Harun Ali's thorough introduction to a posthumous essay by the great J. G. A. Pocock! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

J. G. A. Pocock, essay on the fourth volume of Gibbon's Decline and Fall

This essay presents J. G. A. Pocock reflections on Gibbon’s fourth volume and the shift it marks in the Decline and Fall towards a narrative we might consider ‘Byzantine’. It is the work of Gibbon’...

www.tandfonline.com

4 9

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Voltaire Foundation @voltaire.ox.ac.uk · 29d

Call for Papers!

A social question before the Social Question – Addressing poverty in the long eighteenth century

Deadline 31 December 2025

voltaire.ox.ac.uk/news-item/ca...

Call for Papers: A social question before the Social Question - Addressing poverty in the long eighteenth century

University of Oxford 22-23 October 2026 A pdf file of this call can be found here. Precariousness and hardships were inescapable features of the life of the lower orders in early modern European…

voltaire.ox.ac.uk

16 13

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Oxford Centre for Intellectual History @oxfordcih.bsky.social · Sep 4

Congratulations to Mrinalini Wadhwa of our MPhil in Intellectual History (and @magdalenoxford.bsky.social) on a fascinating blog post @jhideas.bsky.social!

Journal of the History of Ideas @jhideas.bsky.social · Sep 2

In today’s think piece, Mrinalini Sisodia Wadhwa analyzes how historian Sylvia Murr’s discovery of plagiarism in “the most celebrated work of nineteenth-century Indology” led her to develop an approach to historical discourse that challenges received genealogies of the ‘global’ turn.

The Franco-Indian Enlightenment of Sylvia Murr

by Mrinalini Sisodia Wadhwa

web.sas.upenn.edu

2 6

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Taylor Institution Library (Taylorian) @tayoxford.bsky.social · Sep 2

📝 New Blog Post! 📝

Check out this new @voltaire.ox.ac.uk blog post by Nicholas Cronk, celebrating our recent acquisition of a rare printing of Voltaire's Candide, from 1791.

Read on to learn more about the novel itself and the history of its publication, as well as more details on our new edition!

Reading ‘Candide’ during the French Revolution

The Taylor Institution Library (Bodleian Libraries) has recently acquired a rare printing of Candide dating from the Revolutionary period: this edition of 1791 was not known to the principal biblio…

voltairefoundation.wordpress.com

5 8

Oxford Centre for Intellectual History @oxfordcih.bsky.social · Sep 4

Don’t miss our DPhil student Harun Ali's thorough introduction to a posthumous essay by the great J. G. A. Pocock! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

J. G. A. Pocock, essay on the fourth volume of Gibbon's Decline and Fall

This essay presents J. G. A. Pocock reflections on Gibbon’s fourth volume and the shift it marks in the Decline and Fall towards a narrative we might consider ‘Byzantine’. It is the work of Gibbon’...

www.tandfonline.com

4 9

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · Aug 30

Ah, the seventeenth century, when the dream was not artificial but Human General Intelligence, revealed by art.

1 4

Oxford Centre for Intellectual History @oxfordcih.bsky.social · Sep 4

Congratulations to Mrinalini Wadhwa of our MPhil in Intellectual History (and @magdalenoxford.bsky.social) on a fascinating blog post @jhideas.bsky.social!

Journal of the History of Ideas @jhideas.bsky.social · Sep 2

In today’s think piece, Mrinalini Sisodia Wadhwa analyzes how historian Sylvia Murr’s discovery of plagiarism in “the most celebrated work of nineteenth-century Indology” led her to develop an approach to historical discourse that challenges received genealogies of the ‘global’ turn.

The Franco-Indian Enlightenment of Sylvia Murr

by Mrinalini Sisodia Wadhwa

web.sas.upenn.edu

2 6

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Journal of the History of Ideas @jhideas.bsky.social · Aug 21

The recent issue of the JHI includes an article by Ingrid Schreiber: "Egoism and Sociability in the Kantian Public Sphere" muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...

A quote from the article: "We may never truly be alone in Kantianism, but we are also never really together—perhaps to our ultimate advantage."

2 3

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Journal of Early Modern History @earlymodhistory.bsky.social · Aug 14

Our August issue, 29.4, is now available online! This issue opens with an open-access article by Yonatan Glazer-Eytan and Giuseppe Marcocci, "Material Culture and Early Modern Archivality: A Dialogue." brill.com/view/journal...

brill.com

1 8 20

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Oxford Centre for Intellectual History @oxfordcih.bsky.social · Jul 1

📢 New Blog

Robert James Taylor, '"Dropping Out" as Political Thought? Towards a Global Intellectual History of Hippies'

intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk/article/drop...

'Dropping Out' as Political Thought? Towards a Global Intellectual History of Hippies

intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk

1 6 10

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Journal of Global History (JGH) @globalhistjnl.bsky.social · Aug 1

📢 New on FirstView!

Faridah Zaman (@faridahzaman.bsky.social‬) examines portraits of Indian pan-Islamists who advocated for more lenient terms for the Ottoman Empire in Europe in 1920, showing how the Muslim world emerged as a heterotopic space.

Read more here: doi.org/10.1017/S174...

The Muslim world as heterotopia: Global encounters in interwar Europe | Journal of Global History | Cambridge Core

The Muslim world as heterotopia: Global encounters in interwar Europe

doi.org

2 5

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Avi Lifschitz @diderotesque.bsky.social · Aug 2

Congrats to Ingrid Schreiber, a recent DPhil @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social @wadhamcollege.bsky.social, on the publication of her fascinating article in the august @jhideas.bsky.social, re-examining recent attempts to view Kant as a social (or proto-sociological) thinker. doi.org/10.1353/jhi....

7 19

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment @oxunienl.bsky.social · Jun 19

The Eighteenth-Century Studies Collection offers over 700 volumes from two perpetual access digital collections and includes a complete archive of all content published in the Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series between 1955–2021.

Find out more > bit.ly/digital-enli...

12 16

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Teresa M. Bejan @tmbejan.bsky.social · Jul 3

An honor and a pleasure to meet @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social at last and to talk about the slipperiest of topics, civility!

John Gallagher @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social · Jul 2

Tomorrow (Thursday) morning at 9am on BBC Radio 4 — In Our Time discusses civility with Teresa Bejan (@tmbejan.bsky.social), Phil Withington, and me! Listen live or after broadcast at the link below.

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Civility: talking with those who disagree with you

On the value of keeping conversations going with opponents, from the Reformation onwards

www.bbc.co.uk

5 11 47

Oxford Centre for Intellectual History @oxfordcih.bsky.social · Jul 1

📢 New Blog

Robert James Taylor, '"Dropping Out" as Political Thought? Towards a Global Intellectual History of Hippies'

intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk/article/drop...

'Dropping Out' as Political Thought? Towards a Global Intellectual History of Hippies

intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk

1 6 10

Oxford Centre for Intellectual History @oxfordcih.bsky.social · Jun 11

📢 Call for Papers | Deadline 1 July

intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk/event/reform...

Reforming Religion, Morality and Society in Afro-Eurasia: Intellectual and Cultural Traditions in Motion in the Global Eighteenth Century

intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk

2 9

Oxford Centre for Intellectual History @oxfordcih.bsky.social · Jun 6

New Blog

Read the final blog in our 'Democratic Identity' series | Anne Heyer, 'Searching for “Demokratin”? The Curious Case of Women Democrats in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany'

You can now read all the posts in this series on our website ⬇️

intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk/article/sear...

Searching for “Demokratin”? The Curious Case of Women Democrats in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany

intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk

4 7

Oxford Centre for Intellectual History @oxfordcih.bsky.social · May 29

There's still time to sign up for next week's graduate conference! See below for details ⬇️

intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk/event/oxford...

Oxford Centre for Intellectual History Graduate Conference 2025

intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk

1 4 5

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

The Cambridge School @thecambridgeschool.bsky.social · May 6

The Cambridge Graduate Conference in Political Thought and Intellectual History will take place on 24 June 2025 at 9am.

To register, please click this link: ptih-graduate-conference.eventbrite.co.uk

Visit our website for more details: www.polthought.cam.ac.uk/future-event...

5 11

Reposted by Oxford Centre for Intellectual History

Or Rosenboim @orrosenboim.bsky.social · May 15

I wrote on Barbara Ward for the intellectual history blog of Oxford uni, happy to share these early thoughts about this influential international thinker.

Oxford Centre for Intellectual History @oxfordcih.bsky.social · May 15

📢 New Blog

Or Rosenboim (@orrosenboim.bsky.social) explores 'Planetary Orders and Global Divisions in the Political Thought of Barbara Ward'

intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk/article/plan...

Planetary Orders and Global Divisions in the Political Thought of Barbara Ward

intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk

2 9