Between Politics, Millenarianism and Universal Reform: Comenius in Context

Type: 
Lecture
Audience: 
Open to the Public
Building: 
Nador u. 11
Room: 
Hanak room
Friday, October 26, 2012 - 4:00pm
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Date: 
Friday, October 26, 2012 - 4:00pm to 5:30pm

The lecture is open to the public as part of the course

History of European Political Thought - West and East

 

Friday, October 26, 2012 

4:00 PM 

 CEU, Nádor u. 11

Hanak Room 

 

Abstract:

Twentieth-century interpretations of Comenius tended to harmonize his work, to study his thought as a whole and to see him as a systematic thinker. However, there are deep contradictions in Comenius' work which can be highlighted only when taking into account both the texts he produced and their contexts. Over the last decades some new approaches have appeared, such as the network analysis and the Konstellationsforchung, which help to situate Comenius' political thought on the map of early modern political theory. This talk will focus on some components of Comenius' political thought, such as his anti-Machiavellianism, millenarianism and projects of universal reform in context of both his reading and the exchange of ideas within his network.

 

Vladimír Urbánek, PhD. is Research Fellow of the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. He graduated in history at Charles University in Prague and obtained his Ph.D. at Masaryk University in Brno. Among other publications he is author of a monograph Eschatologie, vědění a politika: Příspěvek k dějinám myšlení pobělohorského exilu [Eschatology, knowledge and politics: On the intellectual history of the post-White Mountain Bohemian exiles] (2008). He co-edited two volumes Bene scripsisti... Filosofie od středověku k novověku [Philosophy from the Middle Ages to the Modern Period] (2002) and Mezi Baltem a Uhrami. Komenský, Jednota Bratrská a svět středoevropského protestantismu [Between the Baltic and Hungary: Comenius, the Unity of Brethren and the world of Central European Protestantism] (2006), and is an editor in chief of the Acta Comeniana: International Review of Comenius Studies and Early Modern Intellectual History.  He is currently finishing a book on Czech millenarian prophecies from the mid-seventeenth century and preparing for publication volumes based on workshop and conference series organised together with Howard Hotson in Prague, Cracow, Budapest and Oxford within the Cultures of Knowledge Project.

 

For more information please contact the page of the course:

http://history.ceu.hu/courses/20122013/history-of-european-political-thought-west-and-east-i-from-early-modernity-to-the-e

e-mail: PASTS@ceu.hu