“1680-1715: A Crisis of the European Mind?”
Minneapolis, MN, March 30–April 2, 2017
Proposals due September 15, 2016
In his seminal work, La crise de la conscience européenne, 1680-1715 (1935), Paul Hazard identified at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries a profound crisis of the European mind. In short order, the foundations of the classical order were destabilized and the modern outlook of the Enlightenment emerged. Revisited by generations of scholars, the “Hazard thesis” has proven remarkably resilient, yet the exact nature of the crisis remains in debate. This panel seeks to reevaluate the sources, effects, and extent of the crisis. Proposal from all disciplines are welcome and interdisciplinary perspectives, especially those that challenge or go beyond the idealism of Hazard’s history of ideas, are particularly encouraged. Topics that engage with Hazard’s thesis but are outside the strict confines of his chronology are also welcome.
Please send an abstract and CV no later than September 15, 2016 to Aaron Wile, Harvard University; E-mail: awile@fas.harvard.edu