March 13, CRF - The director Dr. Andreas Önnerfors will give his first lecture
12.02.2008
A
lecture to mark the start of the new directorship of the Centre for Research
into Freemasonry at the University of Sheffield will be held on Thursday 13th
March 2008.
The
new director of the Centre, Dr. Andreas Önnerfors, will talk onthe subject
“Press
between the Private and the Public: Freemasonry as a Topic in 18th-Century
Journals”
Date
and Time: Thursday 13th of March 2008 5.15 pm
Venue:
Conference room at the Douglas-Knoop-Centre 34, Gell Street, Sheffield
The
lecture will be followed by a wine reception.
For
further information and registration please contact
crf@sheffield.ac.uk
or call 0114-222 98 90
Abstract
The
establishment of freemasonry in Great Britain and Europe runs parallel to the
development of enlightenment culture. As many historians have pointed out, this
period is characterised by the emerge of new forms of sociability and social
space. Reinhart Koselleck speaks about “the secret” and “the
public” as a “twin pair” of Enlightenment. The secret in the sense of a
new private space (where freemasonry and other fraternal organisations have a
given place) and the public (especially the press) have been analysed as two
fields with few interrelations. But when it comes to the analysis of
freemasonry, this distinction is blurred. Not only is freemasonry vastly treated
in the very special and popular genre of exposures, it emerged also as a
standard topic of 18th century journals, magazines and newspapers
both in the centres and peripheries of European enlightenment. How private was
the secret and how secret was the public? At the end of the 18th
century there is even the development towards the first purely masonic journals
in Europe with ‘Journal für Freymaurer’ (Vienna, 1784-1787) as the pioneer
and ‘Freemason’s Magazine’ (London, 1793-1797) as the second example. This
lecture will for the first time ever explore the content of these two major
journals in a comparative perspective. Despite of the differences in time,
language and place of their edition, these two journals have many features in
common. They are also an interesting source for the analysis of European thought
at the dawn of the French revolution and in its direct aftermath. Freemasonry as
a topic in 18th-Century journals is on the interface between the
private and the public.
Dr.
Andreas Önnerfors
Director
/ Senior Lecturer
Centre
for Research into Freemasonry
34
Gell Street
Sheffield
S3 7QY
United
Kingdom
Website: www.freemasonry.dept.shef.ac.uk/
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