Coffeehouses and Conversations: Information Tranfer in 17th Century London Intellectual Circles

Description

CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1RX

A one-day symposium, arising from the AHRB project 'Free-Thinking and Language-Planning in Late Seventeenth Century England'.

How did ideas circulate among intellectuals in early-modern London? Robert Hooke, Samuel Pepys, John Evelyn and their acquaintances were enthralled and exasperated by debates and pamphlets in coffeehouses, bookshops and private rooms all over London. This symposium will address the question of how far we can recover the conversations and written exchanges that fuelled the new philosophy and the religious controversies of the mid to late Seventeenth Century. Papers will discuss the evidence for intellectual exchanges in Hooke's diary; the contacts of Francis Lodwick (FRS and early language planner); the influences of texts and conversations on Lodwick's manuscript utopia; and other aspects of the topic.