The Enlightenment in Practice: Academic Prize Contests and Intellectual Culture in France, 1670–1794

Contents

q Contents Acknowledgments ix Note on Abbreviations and Translation xi Map of France xii introduction 1 1. The rebirth of the Concours Académique: cultural Politics and the Domestication of letters in the age of louis Xiv 14 2. À la recherche du concours académique 40 3. The Participatory enlightenment 88 4. Dijon revisited: rousseau’s First Discourse from the Perspective of the Concours Académique 118 5. The Concours Académique, Political culture, and the critical Public sphere 143 6. The Practical enlightenment: The Concours Académique, the state, and the Pursuit of expertise 180 7. Prize contests in the revolutionary crucible: Decline and regeneration 202 conclusion: The enlightenment in Question 220 viii CONTENTS Appendixes A. Academies and Societies in France That Held Public Prize Contests from the Fourteenth Century to 1794 227 B. Female Laureates of the concours académique, 1671–1790 229 C. Contests founded by the Abbé Raynal 233 D. Contests on Poverty, Begging, and Poor Relief 237 E. Contests Related to Urban Drinking Water 239 F. List of Prize Contests Offered by Academies, Scholarly Societies, and Agricultural Societies in Continental France from 1670 to 1794 (available at http://www.jeremycaradonna.com) Notes 241 Works Cited 297 Index 325 ...