Encyclopaedism, Pansophia, and Universal Communication, 1560–1670 April 13, 2010

Encyclopaedism, Pansophia, and Universal Communication, 1560–1670

At the centre of Comenius’s universal reform agenda were pansophia and pampaedia: the related ideas of collecting all knowledge into a single coherent system and of teaching all things to all men. This final workshop will explore the deep roots of these audacious aspirations in central European Protestant learned culture, stretching back several generations before Comenius himself and continuing after his death. Attention will also be extended to the related project of universal communication, which has been given fresh legitimacy by recent historiographical trends. Taking as its point of departure the thesis that early modern Europe experienced a ‘media revolution’, this workshop will also trace the outgrowths of that revolution through the correspondence networks, early learned societies, new techniques for processing and distributing information, and projects for a universal language which multiplied throughout this linguistically, politically, and confessionally fragmented region.

Conference information provided by konferenciakalauz.hu

Official Website: http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/cofk/events/budapest-2010