INVITATION Interdisciplinary colloquium September 30, 2016 FROM THE PEOPLE TO THE PUBLIC The Significance of Public Opinion, Press and Propaganda from 1750 to 1850
«Après la faculté de penser, celle de communiquer ses pensées à ses semblables, est l attribut le plus frappant qui distingue l homme de la brute. Elle est toutà-la-fois le signe de la vocation immortelle de l homme à l état social, le lien, l âme, l instrument de la société, le moyen unique de la perfectionner, d atteindre le degré de puissance, de lumières et de bonheur dont il est susceptible.» Maximilien Robespierre, Discours sur la liberté de la presse, prononcé à la Société des Amis de la Constitution le 11 mai 1791. While Robespierre passionately defended freedom of opinion and freedom of press in 1791, he was to be labelled 'the champion of censorship only a few months later. This change in position was of course the result of political events and circumstances, but it might also attest to the significance of the revolution of the press within the revolutionary period from 1750 to 1850. Not only did the printed word become indispensable as a vehicle of information and debate, it was also at this point that public opinion came to the fore - at times quite literally and brutally - as a crucial vector of political participation. As such, the revolutionary media contributed to a large extent to the revolutionary events that they reported. Today, these newspapers, posters and pamphlets are a key source for historical research and philosophical reflection. This colloquium brings together both young and established Dutch and Flemish researches from history, law and philosophy to discuss their theoretical and empirical perspectives on 18th and 19th century transformations of the elite and non-elite public sphere, propaganda and press, and the influence of these transformations on popular mobilization and political participation.
The colloquium is jointly organized by KU Leuven's Faculty of Law and Institute of Philosophy, within the framework of an interdisciplinary research project entitled Sovereignty in the Belgian Constitution: Its 1831 Meaning and its Implications for Political Participation Today. The project is supervised by prof. dr. Raf Geenens and prof. dr. Stefan Sottiaux and funded by FWO (Research Foundation - Flanders) and KU Leuven. This event is a YouReCa initiative and has received the generous support of the Doctoral School for the Humanities and Social Sciences (KU Leuven). The event will take place at Hollands College Damiaanplein 9 3000 Leuven Participation is free of charge and includes coffee breaks and lunch. Doctoral students are especially welcome. If you wish to attend, please register via e-mail: nora.timmermans@kuleuven.be. All presentations will be given in English. For more information, directions and other practicalities, please contact Nora Timmermans.
PROGRAMME 30 SEPTEMBER 2016 09.00 09.30 : REGISTRATION 09.30 09.40 : WELCOME 09.40 11.10 : SESSION 1 Chair: Nora Timmermans (KU Leuven) - Maarten Colette (Vrije Universiteit Brussel): The Expanding Universe of Radical Redefinition: Lessons from the 18th Century - Olga Bashkina (KU Leuven): Sieyès on the Possibility of Dissent - Nora Timmermans and Christophe Maes (KU Leuven): Classical Republicanism and Revolutionary Press: The Work of Camille Desmoulins as a Symbiosis? 11.10 11.30 : COFFEE BREAK 11.30 13.00 : SESSION 2 Chair: Bas Leijssenaar (KU Leuven) - Bas Leijssenaar (KU Leuven): Communicative Sovereignty: Guizot on Capacity, Publicity, and Reason - Jane Judge (KU Leuven): Jués par le Peuple : Popular Political Participation in the United States of Belgium, 1790 - Frederik Dhondt (Vrije Universiteit Brussel): Legal Literacy and Political Activism from Below: the Case of Jan Joseph Raepsaet (1787-1815) 13.00 14.00 : LUNCH 14.00 15.30 : SESSION 3 Chair: Ronald Van Crombrugge (KU Leuven) - Raf Geenens and Stefan Sottiaux (KU Leuven): Sovereignty in the Belgian Constitution: Its 1831 Meaning and its Implications for Political Participation Today - Brecht Deseure (University of Passau): "Nous ne sommes plus dans l'ordre légal". Legal Order, Legitimate Power and Popular Sovereignty in the Belgian Revolution - Stefaan Marteel: The Political Thought of the Belgian Revolution and the Rise of the Nation-State 15.30 15.50 : COFFEE BREAK 15.50 17.20 : SESSION 4 Chair: Christophe Maes (KU Leuven) - Annelien De Dijn (Universiteit van Amsterdam): Freedom, and Democracy and Liberalism in the Early Nineteenth Century: A Historical Analysis - Carmen Van Praet (Universiteit Gent, Liberaal Archief): Liberal Cooperative Movements in the 1860s: A Solution for the Social Question, a Lever for Emancipation, an Expression of Paternalism or a Means to gain Political Power? - Marnix Beyen (Universiteit Antwerpen): Keeping Power away from the State: the Belgian Constitution in the Life and Works of Barthélémy Dumortier (1797-1878) 17.20 17.30 : CONCLUSION 17.30 : DRINKS (Oude Markt) An up-to-date programme with all the titels of the presentations is available on: http://hiw.kuleuven.be/fromthepeopletothepublic