Banning ideas, burning books: the dynamics of censorship in classical antiquity. How to balance the right to free speech and dissent against other legitimate concerns is an issue that is always with us. This project explores neglected literary evidence from antiquity to study responses to controversial ideas in order to enhance the modern debate on the limits of freedom of speech.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150101612
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$334,746.00
Summary
The republic of feeling: Literary friendship between women, 1750-1830. This project will investigate a rare archive of letters and manuscript materials to examine forms of literary friendship between women in the eighteenth century. This was a period of unprecedented globalisation: letter-based networks stretched across continents. Such connections were conceived in terms of a modern Republic of Letters, an idealised fraternity of scholars and writers who set aside differences in order to foster ....The republic of feeling: Literary friendship between women, 1750-1830. This project will investigate a rare archive of letters and manuscript materials to examine forms of literary friendship between women in the eighteenth century. This was a period of unprecedented globalisation: letter-based networks stretched across continents. Such connections were conceived in terms of a modern Republic of Letters, an idealised fraternity of scholars and writers who set aside differences in order to foster the exchange of information and ideas. This study of fresh manuscript materials will assist in exploring the history of English-speaking intellectual networks and international exchange in early modernity and the place of women within them. The project is located within the long history of global, material and intellectual exchanges in which European Australia was settled. Looking to the past, the project simultaneously contributes to contemporary debates over the possibilities and pitfalls of cultural ‘cosmopolitanism’ as a mode of transnational exchange.Read moreRead less