The notions of public space and public opinion, which have been used for three decades to think about the cultural and political transformations of the 18th century, have exhausted much of their interpretative effectiveness. It's time for a paradigm shift. The hypothesis of this colloquium is that the Enlightenment is inseparable from a veritable " media revolution ", which has had systemic consequences for the circulation of information, cultural and political practices, forms of writing and the construction of individual and collective identities. New reading practices, the rise of newspapers and changes in visual culture have led to the empowerment of media communication, with its own logic, attention-grabbing devices and often transnational dynamics. media communities " are adopting distinct intellectual and affective behaviors, and beginning to think of themselves as " publics ". The result is the emergence of phenomena as diverse as celebrity, fashion, stock market speculation, scandals and political news. How, then, do cultural, financial and political elites adapt to these new dynamics of information circulation, which entail new forms of control but also new possibilities for action ?
How do the men and women of the Enlightenment use new media resources to reach new audiences ? How, in the opposite direction, does a new media culture, linked to specific economic and advertising logics, shape what we call " the Enlightenment " ? How are philosophers, writers and other cultural players reacting to this transformation of the conditions for the exercise of thought and the circulation of knowledge, which they see as both a resource and a threat ? Why is the figure of the journalist so criticized ? We'll be looking at the constitution of a " imaginaire médiatique ", nourished by the pragmatic, utopian or critical reflections that media culture of the eighteenth centurygave rise to.
Organizing committee : Laurent Cuvelier, Gabriela Goldin Marcovich, Antoine Lilti, Julia Marchevsky, Matthew McDonald, Maximilien Novak, Roberto Paiva, Suzanne Rochefort, Christoph Streb.
Organized with the support of the Fondation Hugot and the German Historical Institute.
