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Initiatives

ReX3: Re:Enlightenment Reports, Santa Barbara, December 2012

Since its inception, The Re:Enlightenment Project has been concerned with connecting the knowledge practices and knowledge institutions of the historical Enlightenment with the transformations of both knowledge and institutions in our own time. This third gathering focused on “cultivating new knowledge.” At its conclusion, members agreed that we had now formed a new association: the Re:Enlightenment Collaboratory.

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ReX2: The Re:Enlightenment Exchange, London, July, 2011

The second major international Exchange of The Re:Enlightenment Project took place at the Enlightenment Gallery of the British Museum, the Senate House of the University of London, and the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).

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The Leverhulme Re:Enlightenment Lectures

Clifford Siskin will present two Leverhulme Re:Enlightenment Lectures in March and April 2013 during his appointment as a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at CRASSH. The first lecture, titled "When System Met History: The Tectonics of the Modern Disciplines," is March 5. The second, "Guesswork: System, Science, and the Advancement of Knowledge," takes place April 29.

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Re:Enlightenment in New York: The Pilot Event

On April 21-23, 2010, the Project convened for The Re:Enlightenment Exchange: Futures for Knowledge and Its Institutions at the New York Public Library.

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New Approaches to Publishing

In addition to using established modes of publication, the Project is exploring new approaches to the dissemination of knowledge and research results. We have been cooperating with Open Book Publishers. In addition to using established modes of publication, the Project is exploring new approaches to the dissemination of knowledge and research results. We have been cooperating with Open Book Publishers, an innovative scholarly initiative based in the UK. Open Book publishes peer-reviewed monographs in the humanities and the social sciences in accordance with a new business model for reaching a wider audience more quickly, more cheaply, and with better opportunities for interaction. In addition to inexpensive hard copies and linked websites, OBP offers its books in digital form to be read free of charge via Google books.
Books

The Project is generating scholarly publication, starting with This Is Enlightenment, edited by Clifford Siskin and William Warner, and published by the University of Chicago Press (2010) and The Sword of Judith: Judith Studies across the Disciplines edited by Kevin R Brine, Elena Ciletti, and Henrike Lähnemann, and published by Open Book Publishers.

Read a review of The Sword of Judith
Financial Literacy 2010 Study Group

With an aim to dissect, analyze, and comment on the diverse forms of writing (professional, popular and literary) that created the conventional wisdom challenged by the current financial crisis, the Financial Literacy Study Group held its first event at the New York Public Library in fall 2010. The primary outcome has been a book project on financial modeling currently being co-written by Project co-founder Kevin Brine and NYU Professor Mary Poovey.

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Collaborative Research Seminar

The Project is collaborating with NYU’s Anglophone Project and France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in a two-year Research Seminar (2009-2011). The Project is collaborating with NYU’s Anglophone Project and France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in a two-year Research Seminar (2009-2011) within NYU’s Center for International Research in Humanities and Social Science (CIRHUS) on “Postcolonialism and Enlightenment: An Experiment in Reconstituting Knowledge.”
Working Research Group

The Project was awarded a NYU Humanities Initiative Working Research Group grant that connects scholars from the NYU Faculty of Arts and Science with colleagues. The Project was awarded a NYU Humanities Initiative Working Research Group grant that connects scholars from the NYU Faculty of Arts and Science with colleagues from Steinhardt’s Departments of “Media, Culture, and Communication” and of “Administration, Leadership, and Technology,” as well as from the Institute for Education and Social Policy. Their joint purpose is to investigate “Technologies of Mediation and Translation.” An important part of this effort is comparing and evaluating forms of archival projects with a view to initiating our own.
Speakers Series

The Project organizes a speakers series that has included Peter De Bolla on “The Architecture of Concepts: Parsing Human Rights" and William St Clair on "The Parthenon in the Age of Enlightenment."
Participation in Venues for Scholarly and Public Exchange

Members of the Project have been forwarding its goals at a wide range of conferences in different disciplines across Europe and North America, from Vancouver, Canada to Trondheim Norway.