INVITATION
Interdisciplinary colloquium
September 30, 2016
FROM THE PEOPLE
TO THE PUBLIC
The Significance of Public Opinion,
Press and Propaganda from 1750 to 1850
«Après la faculté de penser, celle
de communiquer ses pensées
à ses semblables, est l’attribut
le plus frappant qui distingue
l’homme de la brute. Elle est toutà-la-fois le signe de la vocation
immortelle de l’homme à l’état
social, le lien, l’âme, l’instrument de
la société, le moyen unique de la
perfectionner, d’atteindre le degré
de puissance, de lumières et de
bonheur dont il est susceptible.»
Maximilien Robespierre, Discours
sur la liberté de la presse,
prononcé à la Société des Amis de
la Constitution le 11 mai 1791.
While Robespierre passionately defended freedom of opinion and freedom
of press in 1791, he was to be labelled 'the champion of censorship’ only a
few months later. This change in position was of course the result of political
events and circumstances, but it might also attest to the significance of the
revolution of the press within the revolutionary period from 1750 to 1850.
Not only did the printed word become indispensable as a vehicle of information
and debate, it was also at this point that public opinion came to the fore - at
times quite literally and brutally - as a crucial vector of political participation.
As such, the revolutionary media contributed to a large extent to the revolutionary
events that they reported. Today, these newspapers, posters and pamphlets
are a key source for historical research and philosophical reflection.
This colloquium brings together both young and established Dutch and Flemish
researches from history, law and philosophy to discuss their theoretical and
empirical perspectives on 18th and 19th century transformations of the elite
and non-elite public sphere, propaganda and press, and the influence of
these transformations on popular mobilization and political participation.
The colloquium is jointly organized by
KU Leuven's Faculty of Law and Institute
of Philosophy, within the framework of an
interdisciplinary research project entitled
The event will take place at
Hollands College
Damiaanplein 9
3000 Leuven
‘Sovereignty in the Belgian Constitution:
Its 1831 Meaning and its Implications for
Political Participation Today’. The project is
supervised by prof. dr. Raf Geenens and
prof. dr. Stefan Sottiaux and funded by FWO
Participation is free of charge and includes coffee breaks
and lunch. Doctoral students are especially welcome.
If you wish to attend, please register via e-mail:
[email protected].
(Research Foundation - Flanders) and KU Leuven.
All presentations will be given in English.
This event is a YouReCa initiative and
has received the generous support of
the Doctoral School for the Humanities
and Social Sciences (KU Leuven).
For more information, directions and other practicalities,
please contact Nora Timmermans.
The colloquium is jointly organized by
KU Leuven's Faculty of Law and Institute
of Philosophy, within the framework of an
interdisciplinary research project entitled
The event will take place at
Hollands College
Damiaanplein 9
3000 Leuven
‘Sovereignty in the Belgian Constitution:
Its 1831 Meaning and its Implications for
Political Participation Today’. The project is
supervised by prof. dr. Raf Geenens and
prof. dr. Stefan Sottiaux and funded by FWO
Participation is free of charge and includes coffee breaks
and lunch. Doctoral students are especially welcome.
If you wish to attend, please register via e-mail:
[email protected].
(Research Foundation - Flanders) and KU Leuven.
All presentations will be given in English.
This event is a YouReCa initiative and
has received the generous support of
the Doctoral School for the Humanities
For more information, directions and other practicalities,
please contact Nora Timmermans.
and Social Sciences (KU Leuven).
PROGRAMME 30 SEPTEMBER 2016
09.00 – 09.30 : REGISTRATION
09.30 – 09.40 : WELCOME
09.40 – 11.10 : SESSION 1
Chair: Nora Timmermans (KU Leuven)
- Maarten Colette (Vrije Universiteit Brussel): The Expanding Universe of Radical Redefinition: Lessons from the 18th Century
- Olga Bashkina (KU Leuven): Sieyès on the Possibility of Dissent
- Nora Timmermans and Christophe Maes (KU Leuven): Classical Republicanism and Revolutionary Press: The Work of Camille Desmoulins as a Symbiosis?
11.10 – 11.30 : COFFEE BREAK
11.30 – 13.00 : SESSION 2
Chair: Bas Leijssenaar (KU Leuven)
- Bas Leijssenaar (KU Leuven): ‘Communicative’ Sovereignty: Guizot on Capacity, Publicity, and Reason
- Jane Judge (KU Leuven): ‘Jués par le Peuple’: Popular Political Participation in the United States of Belgium, 1790
- Frederik Dhondt (Vrije Universiteit Brussel): Legal Literacy and Political Activism from Below: the Case of Jan Joseph Raepsaet (1787-1815)
13.00 – 14.00 : LUNCH
14.00 – 15.30 : SESSION 3
Chair: Ronald Van Crombrugge (KU Leuven)
- Raf Geenens and Stefan Sottiaux (KU Leuven): Sovereignty in the Belgian Constitution: Its 1831 Meaning and its Implications for
Political Participation Today
- Brecht Deseure (University of Passau): "Nous ne sommes plus dans l'ordre légal". Legal Order, Legitimate Power and Popular Sovereignty in
the Belgian Revolution
- Stefaan Marteel: The Political Thought of the Belgian Revolution and the Rise of the Nation-State
15.30 – 15.50 : COFFEE BREAK
15.50 – 17.20 : SESSION 4
Chair: Christophe Maes (KU Leuven)
- Annelien De Dijn (Universiteit van Amsterdam): Freedom, and Democracy and Liberalism in the Early Nineteenth Century: A Historical Analysis
- Carmen Van Praet (Universiteit Gent, Liberaal Archief): Liberal Cooperative Movements in the 1860s: A Solution for the Social Question, a Lever for
Emancipation, an Expression of Paternalism or a Means to gain Political Power?
- Marnix Beyen (Universiteit Antwerpen): Keeping Power away from the State: the Belgian Constitution in the Life and Works of Barthélémy Dumortier
(1797-1878)
17.20 – 17.30 : CONCLUSION
17.30 : DRINKS (Oude Markt)
An up-to-date programme with all the titels of the presentations is available on:
http://hiw.kuleuven.be/fromthepeopletothepublic