'Electrick communication everywhere': Order and Chaos in the Arts and Sciences 1740-1840 I

Transpennine  Enlightenment: the collision of mind with mind in the North 1760-1830

This is the first in a pair of public lectures offered by CECS for the Festival of Ideas 2014. They will explore the importance of the connections between the arts and sciences in the Romantic period. Recent studies in romanticism have questioned any simple dichotomy between the humanities and sciences in the period. Jon Mee and Mary Fairclough will examine the ways in which new discoveries in physiology, chemistry and electricity, and new scientific and educational institutions such as Literary and Philosophical societies, changed the ways that writers thought about their own literary practice and their communication with the public.

This first lecture, by Professor Mee, is entitled ‘Transpennine Enlightenment: The collision of mind with mind in the North 1760 to 1830’. He will look at the networks of writers, experimenters, and lecturers whose collaborations and disagreements helped bring about this revolution of ideas across the north, including our own Yorkshire Philosophical Society in 1822.

For Free registration, see Festival of Ideas website