Circulating Ideas in 17th Century Europe: Networks, Knowledge and Forms

The seventeenth century in Europe was an age of turmoil. Wars, revolutions, and exploration constantly redrew the boundaries of the physical world. But equally important was the turmoil of new ideas that redrew the boundaries of the intellectual world. In poetry and in polemics, men and women involved in philosophy, theology, politics, and science created a dynamic knowledge economy.

But if ideas were the currency of this economy, then how did these writers, thinkers, and agents choose the forms in which that currency should circulate? This conference takes up that question, investigating the relationship between the circulation of ideas and the forms in which they circulated.

Plenary speakers: Mark Greengrass, Margaret Ezell and Richard Serjeantson