Queen Mary Eighteenth-Century Studies Seminar
Wed 13 March 2013
Prof Tony LaVopa (North Carolina State University)
The paper explores the intimate (and unlikely) friendship between David Hume and the Comtesse de Boufflers in Paris in 1763-65. It asks what Hume's imagined life with the Countess might tell us about the strains between his efforts to articulate a new ethos for the Scottish "Middle Station" and his very un-Scottish (and un-English) fondness for the culture of politeness and gallantry in le monde in Paris. Such an inquiry, the paper argues, provides a new angle of approach to one of Hume's central concerns: the relationship between Nature and social artifice.
Time: 5.00-7.00pm
Venue: Seminar Room, Lock-Keepers Cottage Graduate Centre, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End, London, E1 4NS
For updates and more information, see our blog: http://qmcecs.wordpress.com/
Convenors: Prof Markman Ellis, English (m.ellis@qmul.ac.uk); Prof Colin Jones, History (c.d.h.jones@qmul.ac.uk); Prof Miles Ogborn, Geography (m.j.ogborn@qmul.ac.uk); Prof Barbara Taylor, English and History (b.g.taylor@qmul.ac.uk); Prof Amanda Vickery, History (a.vickery@qmul.ac.uk).
[Travel instructions: Central Line or District Line to Mile End. Exit tube station, turn left down Mile End Road, cross Burdett Road, go under the Mile End Green Bridge (a large yellow bridge), over the canal, and the college is on the left. Enter East Gate, and the Lock-Keepers Cottage is the second building on the right].
