Globalizing the Enlightenment (University): Institutional Structures and the Organizers of Knowledge

The universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Göttingen and Uppsala are almost trademarks for certain specific developments of the academic world and its organisation in the 18th century. Among these, the development of the modern academic disciplines and the rise of the modern research university are the most prominent examples. Furthermore the parallel emergence of learned societies next to the universities and in close cooperation with the universities can be seen in all four universities. All these developments had further implications for the general history of knowledge production and organisation, especially in a global context.
Concerning the development of the disciplines, innovations in medicine, natural history, moral philosophy, history and - to use an ahistorical term - cultural studies are especially interesting and can be studied to varying degrees in all universities.
Additionally, the exchange and mobility of people, ideas and goods between the four universities as well as with the wider world was instrumental in the formation process of the modern research university and society in general.


In this workhop scholars from the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Goettingen and Uppsala will discuss common research interests and trajectories.
The workshop is for invited guests only but there will be two public lectures.