Pasi Ihalainen, Professor
Professor of General History, University of Jyväskylä
Docent in Intellectual and Conceptual History
Postal address:
Department of History and Ethnology
History, P.O. Box 35 (H)
FI-40014 University of Jyväskylä
E-mail: pasi.t.ihalainen@jyu.fi
Phone +358400247457
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The project Three Varieties of the Protestant Enlightenment (2004–2009) discusses aspects of political, religious and scientific thought in 18th-century Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden from the perspective of comparative conceptual history. Case studies from Prussia and France are also included. It analyses the vocabularies of popular sovereignty in political philosophy, parliamentary debates and pamphlet literature produced prior to the French Revolution.
The related subprojects concern:
(i) the conceptual construction of national, cultural and political identities in Sweden, Prussia, England and France, approached through case studies on various estates such as the clergy (project Enlightened Loyalties, 1750–1800 (2005–2007));
(ii) the contextualisation of Swedish (Finnish) thought on the political and national community within 18th-century Europe;
(iii) the interaction between the languages of politics and science.
A possible theme to be dealt with during the final years of the project is the re-examination of 18th-century theories of political parties from a comparative perspective.