Rethinking the Republic of Letters
Memory and Identity in Early Modern Learned Communities
Published on 27. May 2025
Book
Hardback
412 pages
978-90-485-5985-5 (ISBN)
Description
This book offers a revisionist look at the historiography of the Republic of Letters and the community of learning in early modern Europe. It suggests a new approach, conceptualising the learned world as a web of imagined communities in which the members do not know all their peers. These communities formed through distinct memory cultures and the representation of and identification with collective identities. Rethinking the Republic of Letters looks at early modern biographical dictionaries (vitae), eulogies, letters, travelogues, and funerary monuments of early modern learned men to trace the (re)formation of these communities. It thereby offers a novel perspective on early modern learned communities - the many Republics of Letters.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
Netherlands
Target group
College/higher education
Academic
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
17 Illustrations, color; 38 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 158 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
635 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-485-5985-5 (9789048559855)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Koen Scholten
Rethinking the Republic of Letters
Memory and Identity in Early Modern Learned Communities
E-Book
10/2025
Routledge
€0.00
Available for download
Koen Scholten
Rethinking the Republic of Letters
Memory and Identity in Early Modern Learned Communities
E-Book
10/2025
Routledge
€0.00
Available for download
Person
Koen Scholten is a historian of science and published on memory and identity in scholarly and scientific communities. He edited Memory and Identity in the Learned World (Brill, 2022) and received his PhD from Utrecht University on a thesis on the formation of early modern communities in the world of learning in 2023.
Content
Introduction: The Republic of Letters as an Imagined Community
Chapter 1. An Inventory of Scholarly Values and Virtues
Chapter 2. Collective History and Geographical Inclusion in Vitae and Elogia
Chapter 3. Collective Memory and Identity in Hugo Grotius's Correspondence
Chapter 4. The Peregrinatio Literaria: Experiencing, Representing, and Forming Learned Communities
Chapter 5. The Basilica di Santa Croce: The Florentine Site of Learned Memory
Chapter 6. The Pieterskerk: Representing the Learned Community of Leiden University
Conclusion
Bibliography
List of Abbreviations
Manuscript Sources
Printed Sources, Before 1800
Printed Sources, Modern
Secondary Literature
Appendix 1
Corpus and Keyword Analysis
Main Corpus
Reference Corpus
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. An Inventory of Scholarly Values and Virtues
Chapter 2. Collective History and Geographical Inclusion in Vitae and Elogia
Chapter 3. Collective Memory and Identity in Hugo Grotius's Correspondence
Chapter 4. The Peregrinatio Literaria: Experiencing, Representing, and Forming Learned Communities
Chapter 5. The Basilica di Santa Croce: The Florentine Site of Learned Memory
Chapter 6. The Pieterskerk: Representing the Learned Community of Leiden University
Conclusion
Bibliography
List of Abbreviations
Manuscript Sources
Printed Sources, Before 1800
Printed Sources, Modern
Secondary Literature
Appendix 1
Corpus and Keyword Analysis
Main Corpus
Reference Corpus
Acknowledgements