Julia Peters on ‘Hegel’s Theory of Freedom’

On Thursday 22 May Julia Peters, future post-doctoral fellow at ECLA, helped us to understand the notoriously difficult ideas of German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel. In a focused lecture, Peters traced Hegel’s argument for the institution of private property as a necessary condition for human freedom. Hegel endorses the idea that institutional constraints allow for freedom

Read More

Stefano Evangelista on Walter Pater

On 13 February Dr. Stefano Evangelista of Trinity College, Oxford, presented an inspiring guest lecture on Walter Pater’s vision of the Renaissance as a state of mind. Walter Pater (1839 – 1894) was an English art and literary critic at Oxford. Although he was a shy and peaceful man, his book The Renaissance, Studies in

Read More

Dr. Jobst Welge on the Decameron

On 28 January Dr. Jobst Welge of Freie Universität zu Berlin presented a guest lecture on Boccaccio’s Decameron. Written in 1348, the Decameron tells of the brigata, a band of three young men and seven young women who flee from plague-ridden Florence to a pastoral idyll, where they feast and tell stories – ten stories

Read More