Recent years have witnessed the proliferation of innovative scholarship on the Enlightenment, which invited historians to rethink the spatial and chronological coordinates of this complex intellectual movement. Traditionally regarded as a predominantly Franco-Prussian event, the Enlightenment is now conceived in an increasingly polycentric and pluralistic fashion. This course therefore seeks to introduce students to a more nuanced understanding of this cultural and philosophical movement, in line with the recent historiography. It does so in various ways: first, it relies on the resources of transnational history to illustrate the permeability and interconnectedness of the contexts in which the Enlightenment developed; second, it employs a variety of historiographical approaches (e.g. intellectual, political, cultural, economic and social history) to interrogate a broad range of ideas, authors, texts, as well as their circulation within the continent; third, it engages more substantially with voices and narratives commonly regarded as “peripheral”, such as the Scottish, Neapolitan and Spanish-speaking Enlightenments; fourth, it also considers the global dimension of the Enlightenment, focusing on its reception in the wider world and its ability to shape experiences of political change and Revolution across the Atlantic.

Furthermore, just as it seeks to deconstruct the conventional map of the European Enlightenment, this course also attempts to rethink its chronological boundaries, outlining an increasingly splintered and multi-directional narrative that disrupts its teleological association with the French Revolution. It will do so by shining a light on experiences of Revolution taking place in the European and global “peripheries”, and by reviewing its links with the Napoleonic era. Overall, this course encourages students to embrace a critical approach to the canonical historiography on the Enlightenment and consequently develop a more accurate and engaging understanding of this movement, and of its role in European, as well as world history.