The third in this year’s lecture series for Queens’ first-years, ‘Knowledge and Power: Key topics in intellectual and cultural history’, will be held on Friday 23 January (4.30-6pm), in the Bowett Room. Dr Andrew Thompson will talk on ‘What is Enlightenment?’
The ideas of the enlightenment thinkers have been central to European intellectual debate and the conception of humanities and social sciences since at least the late seventeenth century. This talk explores what it meant to be enlightened and what style of thinking and criticism its advocates encouraged. It also considers the vexed question of the relationship between enlightenment and modernity and shows how, even for its opponents, its conception and concerns continue to structure debate right up to the present.
If you are a first-year undergrad reading any of the following, please come and join us: Architecture; Asian and Middle Eastern Studies; Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic; Classics; English; Geography; History; History of Art; Human, Social and Political Sciences; Linguistics; Modern and Medieval Languages; Music; Theology and Religious Studies.
This series provides approachable introductions to important ideas in intellectual history from a range of disciplinary perspectives. We combine expert contributions by Queens’ Fellows with a friendly and relaxed atmosphere – and an opportunity to meet other first-years studying a range of related subjects.