Conferences & Workshops

Kommunikationsräume vernetzt (The Gotha Court under Duke Frederick III and Duchess Luise Dorothea - Private Libraries, Societies and Correspondence)

Date: 05.03.2026 - 06.03.2026
Venue: Gotha Research Centre
Organisation:Dr Gabriele Ball (University of Göttingen), Dr Hendrikje Carius (Gotha Research Library)

In the middle of the 18th century, the court of Luise Dorothea and Frederick III of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg was characterised by upheaval, sociability and productive engagement with the Europe of the Enlightenment and its (media) centres in Berlin, Göttingen, Leipzig, Paris, London and Amsterdam. The Gotha circle of nobility and scholars networked via correspondence and active membership of societies and thus participated in the literary and scholarly debates of the time via the expanding book and journal market. These communication processes had a significant influence on the collecting practices of the actors involved, particularly in their bibliophilic endeavours.

Against the background of praxeological approaches from the field of network research and the history of knowledge, and taking into account methods of digital humanities, the workshop is dedicated to the interconnections of early modern institutions and media at and around the Gotha court. The focus is on the question of the entanglement structures of aristocratic and scholarly actors in the communication spaces "book collection", "société" and "letter correspondence" as well as the discursive formations that constituted these spaces. The object of investigation is not only the book collections of the central protagonists - Duchess Luise Dorothea and Duke Friedrich III - and other learned and princely private libraries preserved in the Gotha Research Library, but also associations such as Masonic lodges or the mixed-gender Ordre des Hermites de bonne humeur. Particular attention will also be paid to the literary correspondence of outstanding personalities associated with the Gotha court, such as Juliane Franziska von Buchwald, Gottfried Christian Freiesleben, Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter, Laurent Angliviel de La Beaumelle and Voltaire, which frames the field of research.

The main questions of the workshop are aimed at reconstructing the constellation of actors around the ducal couple: To what extent can practices of cooperation between Frederick and Luise Dorothea in the field of cultural and scientific activities at court be proven? Can the central position attributed to the duchess in this area be verified? What implications did her role have for the female networks at the Gotha court, which have so far only been partially investigated? What was the relationship of 'learned' men and women to the courtly centre of power? The aim of the workshop is to further explore the communication and knowledge spaces at the Gotha court in the middle of the 18th century in their praxeological dimensions.

Contact:

Dr Gabriele Ball

Dr Hendrikje Carius

Conference programme

The afterlife of the Enlightenment - continuities and networks between the late 18th and early 19th centuries

Date: 26.03.2026 - 27.03.2026
Location: Gotha Research Centre
Organisation: Martin Mulsow, Gotha Research Centre / University of Erfurt; Isabel Heide, University of Erfurt (Gotha Research Centre)

The period between 1770 and 1820 marks a phase of profound social, political and intellectual upheaval: the transition from the ancien régime characterised by the estates to bourgeois society, from the absolutist state to early liberalism, but also from Enlightenment rationalism to the Romantic search for meaning made this "saddle period" (Reinhart Koselleck) a hinge of modernity. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear in research that this period of upheaval was characterised not only by ruptures, but also by long continuities and complex transitions.

Particularly in the area of late Enlightenment networks, institutions and ideas, it is possible to recognise a continued impact beyond the caesura of the French Revolution of 1789. Biographical developments show how Enlightenment actors reacted to new political realities - be it through withdrawal, reorientation or the continuation of Enlightenment practice in a different form. The transformation processes from secret societies to political associations, from informal salons to organised societies or from religious-philosophical circles to editorial and journalistic platforms also raise new questions.

The aim of the conference is to analyse these transitions from an interdisciplinary perspective. We are interested in biographical trajectories, institutional reorganisations, ideational transformations and network dynamics that determined the afterlife of the Enlightenment between the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

We invite contributions that open up new perspectives on the Enlightenment and its after-effects, work in a methodologically innovative way or focus on actors, spaces and formats that have received little attention to date.

Contact:

Isabel Heide