Colloquium " Lumières multiples "

Colloquium organized by Professor Antoine Lilti, from June¹ to 2 2023 in theMarguerite de Navarre amphitheatre at the Collège de France (Marcelin Berthelot site).

Multiple Enlightenment

"   " Enlightenment " usually refers to an intellectual movement that developed in Europe in the ^18th century. Its limits, unity and coherence are debated, as are its legacies, but its anchorage in this specific moment and place in world history is rarely contested.

This colloquium aims to explore another approach, according to which Europe does not have a monopoly on the Enlightenment. Some of their characteristic features (the assertion of freedom to philosophize against religious or political dogma, political liberalism based on natural rights, the valorization of scientific and technical progress, the idea of a common humanity) can be found in different societies, at different times, from medieval Andalusia to Meiji Japan, from South America at the time of Independence to China in 1919. We can assume that the ^eighteenth century in Europe represents just one episode, albeit a historically important one, in a plural history of the Enlightenment.

Taking the multiplicity of the Enlightenment seriously means abandoning any diffusionist perspective. The initiative of local players (scholars, translators, reformers, modernizers), the role of intermediaries, the weight of political, social and cultural contexts will be scrutinized. Texts and ideas circulate, but often in unexpected ways, through translations, appropriations and redefinitions, forming specific configurations and hybrid traditions.

At the same time, critical attention will be paid to the historiographical operations that designate currents of thought or historical moments through the category " Lumières " : rarely neutral, these operations often respond to objectives that are inseparably intellectual and political. The same is true of the identification of the Enlightenment with Europe, which must be understood as the result of a historiographical tradition dating back to the ^eighteenth century, and which needs to be questioned.

The history of " lumières multiples " does not aim to turn the Enlightenment into a global, homogeneous concept, but rather to pluralize its history and heritage, in order to restore its critical charge and topicality.