Élisabeth Décultot – författare

Enlightenment values, including an emphasis on human rights and belief in rationalism and progress, aspire to be universals, yet at the same time they are concepts grounded in the eighteenth century. Since the French Revolution we have grappled with the concepts of Enlightenment, Lumière, Aufklärung, in an attempt to understand how these eighteenth-century concepts continue to shape and influence modern notions of liberal culture.This collection of essays approaches these important questions in a resolutely European and multi-lingual perspective. Ranging from Victor Cousin to Peter Gay, different chapters consider Tocqueville and the Hegelian school (Bruno Bauer, David Friedrich Strauss, Hermann Hettner), the intellectual currents in Europe around 1900 (Wilhelm Dilthey, Gustave Lanson), the thinkers of the Weimar Republic (Ernst Cassirer) and of the Frankfurt School (Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno), and the debates after the Second World War (Franco Venturi). While the principal focus is on writing in French, German and English, the book also treats the Russian- and Italian-speaking worlds.This important contribution to the history of ideas helps us to redefine the Enlightenment. These essays do not merely describe historical assessments of an eighteenth-century movement of ideas: they contribute to the ongoing debate about the very nature of the concept of Enlightenment.

Als Maler, aber auch als künstlerischem Rollenmodell wurde Raffael im 19. Jahrhundert eine einzigartige Stellung zugesprochen. Vorbereitet durch eine lange, schon im 16. Jahrhundert einsetzende Rezeptionsgeschichte, stand die Verehrung seines Werkes wie seiner Person um die Wende zum 19. Jahrhundert auf einem Höhepunkt. Der Raffael-Kult erfasste Kunstkritik und Kunstgeschichte ebenso wie Literatur und Musikgeschichte. Raffael wurde zum Paradigma: Auf ihn wurden nicht nur kunsttheoretische, sondern auch religiöse und gesellschaftliche Vorstellungen projiziert, welche die ideale Stellung des Künstlers und Menschen in seiner Zeit benannten.Die Raffael-Rezeption steht im 19. Jahrhundert unter einer Spannung, die sich aus dem Gegen- und Miteinander der Aktualität eines künstlerischen Œuvres aus dem 16. Jahrhundert und dessen Historisierung ergibt. Sie umfasst sowohl die Fortschreibung bzw. neue Entwürfe von Künstlerlegenden als auch die Entwicklung historisch-wissenschaftlicher Methoden zu Biographie und Kunstgeschichte. Das auf den Vorträgen einer trilateralen Konferenz in der Villa Vigoni im Dezember 2007 basierende Buch bildet den zweiten Band der Reihe Klassizistisch-romantische Kunst(t)räume und schließt unmittelbar an Fragestellungen an, die im ersten Band untersucht wurden.

When the University of Halle-Wittenberg founded the Interdisciplinary Centre for European Enlightenment Studies in 1993, it was following the destiny of its history as a centre of the early Enlightenment in Germany which affected the whole of Europe. Research foci of the Centre are at the moment aesthetics, discourses of history, cultures of learning and erudition, university history and not least the wide field of early Enlightenment as a field of experimentation and the foundation of cultural models for the Modern Age. The results of this research have been published since Autumn 1995 in the Centres’ research publications series entitled University of Halle Series on the European Enlightenment. In addition, there have been relevant works produced outside the Centre. Two to four volumes are published annually (monographs, collected volumes, commentaries on sources).

When the University of Halle-Wittenberg founded the Interdisciplinary Centre for European Enlightenment Studies in 1993, it was following the destiny of its history as a centre of the early Enlightenment in Germany which affected the whole of Europe. Research foci of the Centre are at the moment aesthetics, discourses of history, cultures of learning and erudition, university history and not least the wide field of early Enlightenment as a field of experimentation and the foundation of cultural models for the Modern Age. The results of this research have been published since Autumn 1995 in the Centres’ research publications series entitled University of Halle Series on the European Enlightenment. In addition, there have been relevant works produced outside the Centre. Two to four volumes are published annually (monographs, collected volumes, commentaries on sources).

When the University of Halle-Wittenberg founded the Interdisciplinary Centre for European Enlightenment Studies in 1993, it was following the destiny of its history as a centre of the early Enlightenment in Germany which affected the whole of Europe. Research foci of the Centre are at the moment aesthetics, discourses of history, cultures of learning and erudition, university history and not least the wide field of early Enlightenment as a field of experimentation and the foundation of cultural models for the Modern Age. The results of this research have been published since Autumn 1995 in the Centres’ research publications series entitled University of Halle Series on the European Enlightenment. In addition, there have been relevant works produced outside the Centre. Two to four volumes are published annually (monographs, collected volumes, commentaries on sources).