"Lines of Amity, Lines of Enmity: War and Peace in the Eighteenth Century"
The eighteenth century witnessed both the envisioning of a state of perpetual peace (Kant), as well as what some have called the first world wars. What defines a "state of war" or "state of peace" in this period? Are they opposed or complementary? Indeed, are they even definable, stable states? Contemporary scholarship continues to tell stories of the growth of civil society and the Habermasian "public sphere," locales that seemingly domesticate conflict, even render it productive. What relation do economic or social competition, intellectual or scientific debate, political or religious dissent have with ideas of war and peace? Foucault thought he discerned in modernity a growing focus on "governmentality," which took the life of the citizen as opposed to his death to be its object of concern and calculation. But does the growth of such Enlightenment ideals as perpetual peace, humanitarianism, and cosmopolitanism effectively repudiate war and conflict as the norm for society, or even some parts of society? Do the concepts of war and peace as articulated in diplomacy, statecraft, law, literature, and philosophy have any bearing on how war and peace were experienced by people at home, on the battlefield, in the colonies?
All events, except meals, will take place in the Distinguished Alumni Room, Indiana Memorial Union
Wednesday 10 May
2:30 p.m.
Welcome by Dror Wahrman (Director, Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University)
3:00-5:00 p.m.
David Bell (History, Johns Hopkins)
The Culture of War in Europe, 1750-1815: An Interpretation
Viorel Panaite (World History, Bucharest)
Ottoman Law of Peace in the Eighteenth Century: Islamic Tradition and
International Custom
Commentator: Jonathan Elmer (English, Indiana)
6:30 p.m.
Festive Dinner
at the Chaouli residence
(1220 E. First St., 330-1776)
Thursday 11 May
9:00-11:00 a.m.
Mary Favret (English, Indiana)
A Brief History of the Meaning of War
Jan Mieszkowski (German, Reed College)
Faust at War
Sarah Monks (History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art)
Culture, Conflict and Compensation: The Naval Battlescape and the
Exhibition Space in Late-Eighteenth-Century London
Commentator: Fritz Breithaupt (German, Indiana)
11:30-1:00 p.m.
David Bates (Rhetoric, Berkeley)
Constitutional Violence
Jody Greene (Literature and Women's Studies, UC Santa Cruz)
Hostis Humani Generis: Rogue States and Piratopias
Commentator: Konstantin Dierks (History, Indiana)
1:15 p.m.
Lunch at Samira Restaurant
3:00-5:00 p.m.
Immanuel Kant (University of Königsburg)
On Perpetual Peace
Klaus Berghahn (German, Wisconsin)
War and Peace in the Age of Terrorism: Kant's Peace Utopia - Reconsidered
Commentator: Michel Chaouli (Germanic Studies, Indiana)
Friday 12 May
Morning free for reading
10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Timothy Campbell (English, Indiana)
"The business of war": William Godwin, Enmity, and History
Susan Maslan (French, Berkeley)
Rousseau's Unnatural History of Destruction: Rousseau on War
Tilottama Rajan (English and Theory, Western Ontario)
Perpetual Peace, Absolute War: Godwin's Mandeville
Commentator: J. Paul Hunter (English, Virginia)
Lunch on Your Own
3:00-4:30 p.m.
Joint Session with the Johnson Society
Daniel O'Quinn (English and Theatre Studies, Guelph)
Mysore, or Mystification: The Anxious Enactment of Peace
David Mazella (English, Houston)
Samuel Johnson, 1771, and the War That Never Was
4:30-6:00 p.m.
Joint Reception with the Johnson Society IMU Patio (Rain Location: State Room West)
7:30 p.m.
Workshop Banquet
Le Petit Café
Saturday 13 May
9:00-11:00 a.m.
Sara Eigen (Germanic Languages, Vanderbilt)
A Point of Recognition: Enemy, War, Next-of-Kin
Sarah Knott (History, Indiana)
War and Revolution: Sensibility, Violence and the Arranging of American
Minds
Sami-Juhani Savonius (History, Cambridge)
Arming and Pacifying Citizens in the Early Enlightenment
Commentator: Oscar Kenshur (Comparative Literature, Indiana)
11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
Workshop Summary Session
Moderators: Jonathan Elmer, Robert Schneider, Dror Wahrman
1:00 p.m.
Luncheon State Room West, IMU
The Workshop is organized by the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University (Dror Wahrman, Director).
The workshop is made possible thanks to the generous support of the College of Arts and Sciences. We would like to extend special thanks to Dean Kumble R. Subbaswamy for his continuing support, and to Barbara Truesdell for her invaluable help.