Symposium

Romanticism at the Royal Institution

007_gillray_davy_300_5_10305fd2055001aeFriday 7 June 2019, 14.00-20.00        The Royal Institution of Great Britain, 21 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4BS 

Speakers: David Duff, Frank James, Hattie Lloyd Edmondson, Seamus Perry, Sharon Ruston, Sarah Zimmerman

Founded in 1799, the Royal Institution became the home of science education and the site of scientific discoveries and technological innovations which changed the world. In its early years, this remarkable scientific agenda was accompanied by an equally impressive programme of literary education, as luminaries such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Campbell and Sydney Smith took to the lecture podium to dazzle the fashionable male and female audiences of London with the latest advances in literary criticism and aesthetics. Science, poetry and philosophy combined in the work of the ‘chemical philosopher’ Humphry Davy and his literary friends, making the Royal Institution a centre of Romanticism as well as a focal point of the thriving public lecture culture of the time. This half-day symposium with talks by leading scholars will restore the forgotten literary history of the Royal Institution and highlight its unique interdisciplinary contribution to British Romantic culture.

This event is free and open to everyone, including members of the public.

Click here for further details and to register for a free place

Co-organised by the London-Paris Romanticism Seminar, the Fordham Romanticism Group, New York, and the Royal Institution, London

 

PROGRAMME

13.30  Registration

14.00  Welcome      

14.15  David Duff (Queen Mary University of London) Announcing Knowledge: Prospectuses at the Royal Institution

14.45  Hattie Lloyd Edmondson (Science Museum) Rulers of Opinion: Women at the Royal Institution, 1799-1812

15.15  Sharon Ruston (University of Liverpool) Humphry Davy: Poet and Reader of Poetry

15.45  Tea and coffee

16.15  Seamus Perry (University of Oxford) Coleridge in the Lecture Theatre

16.45  Frank James (Royal Institution) The Very Young Humphry Davy

17.15  Sarah Zimmerman (Fordham University, New York) Thomas Campbell at the Royal Institution

17.45  Tour of Royal Institution (led by Frank James)

18.30  Wine reception and book launch

20.00  Finish

 

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Paris Symposium 2020

Oaths, Odes and Orations 1789-1830

Information about the next Paris symposium, to be held in Spring 2020, will be posted on the site in due course.