New Directions in the History of Political Thought, 1500-1800: Dialogues at Disciplinary Thresholds

The aim of this workshop is to showcase some of the most interesting research being undertaken by
early career scholars (including doctoral and postdoctoral researchers) of early-modern political
thought and intellectual history. This research is notable for probing disciplinary boundaries – in
particular between the history of political thought and political theory. Their work raises questions
about the kinds of resources which early modern political thought offers to the political theorist, and
asks how the insights of political theory might inform our interpretations of those early-modern
political philosophers whose writings continue to shape how we approach and address many of the
most pressing contemporary problems.

All are very welcome to attend either the whole event, or a particular session, but must register because
places are limited: please email Max Skjönsberg (max.skjonsberg@york.ac.uk) or Tim Stuart-Buttle
(tim.stuart-buttle@york.ac.uk) by Monday 21 May. Please also note that the papers will be precirculated
to all registered attendees: they will not be presented, and it is expected that all attendees for
any given session (or for the whole event) will have read them prior to the workshop.

Day 1: Thursday 14 June

12.00-12.30 Welcome: sandwiches, coffee and tea

12.30-13.00 Monica Brito Vieira (York)
Opening Remarks

13.00-13.50 Antoinette Saxer (York)
‘Translating Aristotle’s Politics in Early Modern Europe’
Comment: Mads Langballe Jensen (Royal Holloway)

13.50-14.40 Sophie Nicholls (Oxford)
‘The Sorbonistes and the Catholic League: Applied Scholasticism in the Wars of
Religion’
Comment: Tim Stuart-Buttle (York)

14.40-15.10 Coffee Break

15.10-16.00 Signy Gutnick Allen (LSE)
‘Residency, Property and Citizenship: Some Seventeenth-century Debates.’
Comment: Paul Sagar (KCL)

16.00-16.50 Johan Olsthoorn (Leuven/Amsterdam) and Laurens van Apeldoorn (Leiden)
‘Rights of Resistance and Limited Government in Locke and the Classical Social
Contract Tradition’
Comment: Josh Milburn (York)

16.50-17.40 Vanessa Lim (QMUL)
‘The Virtue of Deliberating: Politics and the Limits of Eloquence’
Comment: Alasia Nuti

18.00 Drinks

19.30 Conference dinner

Day 2: Friday 15 June

10.00-10.30 Welcome with coffee, tea and pastries

10.30-11.20 Robin Douglass (KCL)
‘Mandeville on the Origins of Virtue’
Comment: Heikki Haara (Helsinki)

11.20-12.10 Tae-Yeoun Keum (Oxford)
‘An Enlightenment Fable: Leibniz and the Boundaries of Reason’
Comment: Alex Chadwick (Groningen)

12.10-13.00 Felix Waldmann (Cambridge)
‘Political Thought and “The Enlightenment” in Naples, 1647-1799’
Comment: Robin Mills (UCL)

13.00-13.50 Sandwich Lunch

13.50-14.40 Adela Halo (QMUL)
‘Madame de Staël on a Free and Stable Republic’
Comment: Adam Fusco (York)

14.40-15.30 Ian Stewart (LSE)
‘Language and Nation in Napoleonic France’
Comment: Alfred Moore (York)

Closing Remarks, followed by open discussion