Publication of the opening lecture by Prof. Dr. Antoine Lilti

Antoine Lilti

Actualité des Lumières : une histoire plurielle

In an original chronology, Antoine Lilti rethinks the Enlightenment and its legacy.

The Enlightenment refers not only to an intellectual movement rooted in ^18th-century Europe, or to a historical period that is now past. They also refer to a philosophical and political heritage that is still relevant today. We don't just study them, we claim them or criticize them. How can we think about the contemporary relevance of the Enlightenment ?
Drawing on recent advances in historiography, Antoine Lilti proposes to conceive of the Enlightenment as a space for critical debate on modernity and an ideal of emancipation through knowledge. He outlines a program of comparative research on the " Lumières multiples " and their legacy in different cultural spaces.

Lilti A., Actualité des Lumières : une histoire plurielle, Paris, Collège de France/Fayard, coll. " Leçons inaugurales ",^no 316, juin 2023, 80 p.

ISBN : 978-2-213-72590-1
Price : 12 €
Publication : 7 June 2023

A historian of cultural practices, Antoine Lilti has studied changes in public space and sociability, as well as the emergence, in the ^18th century, of a new form of personal recognition : celebrity. Her work focuses on the history of the Enlightenment in ^{eighteenth-century} Europe and its contemporary legacy. After teaching at the EHESS, he was appointed Professor at the Collège de France in 2022, holding the Histoire des Lumières, ^XVIIIe-XIXe century chair.