International conference
organised by the Collaborative Research Center 980 “Episteme in Motion. Transfer of Knowledge
from the Ancient World to the Early Modern Period” (Freie Universität Berlin)
In collaboration with the Voltaire Foundation
at the University of Oxford

Time & Location

Jul 13, 2022 – Jul 15, 2022

Freie Universität Berlin
Seminarzentrum, Raum L115
Otto-von-Simson-Str. 26
14195 Berlin-Dahlem

Freie Universität Berlin
Villa Engler
Altensteinstraße 2
14195 Berlin-Dahlem
Further Information

Convenors: Avi Lifschitz (University of Oxford) and Martin Urmann (Freie Universität Berlin)

Please register with emilia.sophie.moreno@hotmail.com

Prize competitions were a shared practice across countries and institutions, playing a central role in the 18th-century public sphere, but they
have received little scholarly attention. The conference examines these contests through new analytical and theoretical lenses, with an emphasis
on comparative and transnational perspectives. Speakers analyse the long-term history of the genre and its rhetorical background while engaging
with individual competitions especially from ‘peripheries’ of the Republic of Letters and beyond Europe. The conference thus contributes to an
entangled history of this particular medium of the early modern Republic of Letters.

Wednesday, 13 July
(Venue: Seminarzentrum, Raum L115, Otto-von-Simson-Str. 26, 14195 Berlin-Dahlem)

15:30–16:00
Avi Lifschitz (University of Oxford), Martin Urmann (Freie Universität Berlin)
Welcome and Introduction

16:00–17:00
Martin Urmann (CRC 980 “Episteme in Motion”)
Panegyric, confirmation of the canon, and knowledge production: prize contests as a hybrid medium of public debate

17:00–17:15 Coffe break

17:15–18:15
Arjan van Dixhoorn (University College Roosevelt, Middelburg)
Dutch prize contests as a measure of long-term cultural change in Europe

18:15–19:15
Maria Florutau (University of Oxford)
The role of the jury in shaping the prize essay genre in the Netherlands in the second half of the eighteenth century

19:30 Conference dinner

Thursday, 14 July
(Venue: Villa Engler, Altensteinstraße 2, 14195 Berlin-Dahlem)

10:00–11:00
Martin Gierl (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
Organizing science: prize contests in Göttingen and the case of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

11:00–12:00
Rita Krueger (Temple University, Philadelphia)
Constructing useful knowledge: essay contests in Habsburg Bohemia and Moravia

12:00–14:00 Lunch break

14:00–15:00
Nicola Miller (University College London)
Competing to define the future: prize contests in independence-era Spanish America

15:00–16:00
Béla Kapossy (EPFL, Lausanne)
‘The spirit of legislation’: the Bernese prize essay competition of 1764

16:00–16:30 Coffee break

16.30–17:30
Juliane Engelhardt (University of Copenhagen)
From science to practice: the role of prize contests in academies and patriotic societies in the Danish-German-Norwegian composite monarchy

17:30–18:30
Kelsey Rubin-Detlev (University of Southern California, Los Angeles)
Popularisation and prestige in the staging of prize contests at the St Petersburg Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1777–1802

19:00 Conference dinner

Friday, 15 July
(Venue: Villa Engler, Altensteinstraße 2, 14195 Berlin-Dahlem)

10:00–11:00
Maria Susana Seguin (Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier/ENS Lyon)
Prizes and awards at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, 1700–1750

11:00–12:00
Iwan-Michelangelo D’Aprile (Universität Potsdam)
The transformation of academic prize contests in the aftermath of the French Revolution

12:00–13:30 Lunch break

13:30–14:15
Final discussion