Private Lives/Public Virtues: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Long Eighteenth Century

Scholars have long focused on the “long eighteenth century” in Europe and America as a time of radical transformation, both in the realm of public life and vis-à-vis notions of the family, gender, and the individual. In a series of “lightning lectures,” graduate students from the “Private Lives/Public Virtues” seminar reflected creatively on the transformation of the public and private spheres in German-speaking Europe and the United States from the eighteenth century to the present day.

In the spirit both of the Enlightenment and of the course’s public-humanities focus, these presentations were designed for a general audience, as they sought to entertain as well as enlighten. The symposium was in English, and it focused on three main topics: Women, Religion and Enlightenment: Luise Gottsched’s Pietism in Petticoats, Enlightenment Goes Transnational: Publics and Debates, and Enlightenment 2.0: Media, Technologies, Interventions.