Call for Papers CSECS Congress 2027

Deadline: January 11 2027

Enlightenment civilization placed great value on pleasures. Whilst it is often associated with the 18th-century taste for libertinage, the promotion of the idea of pleasure at that time nevertheless had a dimension that was, first and foremost, controversial and philosophical, as it expressed a rejection of all the rigid moral codes inherited from the 17th century. These generally considered that the pursuit of pleasure was dictated by the depraved passions of a human nature deemed selfish and predatory. In this sense, throughout the 18th century, celebrating pleasures was a fundamental act of civilization. It served to rehabilitate human sensibility, whether under the form of body or of emotions, of sensations or of affects, or even of what the French novelist Crébillon the Younger wittily termed the ‘sentiments of the body’ (Tanzaï and Néadarné, 1734).

From now on, the pleasure and attraction it exerts are conceived as a ‘law of nature’ which ‘is of such authority that we cannot help but obey it’ (Fréret, Letter from Thrasybulus to Leucippus). For Voltaire, this is, moreover, a property of matter in the same way as gravitational attraction is. Thus, just as the laws of gravity govern the motion of the planets, so too do we see that ‘it is through pleasure’ that nature ‘guides human beings’ (On the Nature of Pleasure, 1737). But this thesis does not merely invite us to consider that the whole of an individual’s life is organized around the distinction between pleasure and displeasure, conceived ‘as the two driving forces that set all our faculties in motion’ (Lévesque de Pouilly, The Theory of agreeable Sensations, 1749). As a fundamental principle of one’s relationship with oneself, pleasure becomes an equally essential dimension of one’s relationship toward others.

Thus, for the Scottish philosopher David Hume, the very principle of intersubjectivity is inseparable from the emotional exchanges that take place between the members of a society (A Treatise of Human Nature, 1739). The same holds true for French philosophers such as Sophie de Grouchy, for whom the bonds uniting each individual with others ‘derive from the nature of the sensations that pleasure and pain cause us to experience’, so that ‘it is first and foremost as sentient beings that we are capable of sympathy’; this is, moreover, the reason why, for example, ‘the mere pleasure of loving and being loved is, for us, a source of happiness’ (Letters on Sympathy, 1798). As a natural and spontaneous impulse, pleasure contributes, in all cases, to the formation of social bonds, since it compels each individual to recognize oneself as a member of a community of sentient beings. In this sense, whilst the pursuit of pleasure is the principal driving force behind human behavior, this principle further and above all requires that we define the individual as a being who is first and foremost relational, i.e., whose actions are determined by one’s bonds with others.

It is therefore in this capacity that pleasure and sociability formed, throughout the Age of Enlightenment, a conceptual pairing whose fates were intertwined, and which were to be portrayed, celebrated or scrutinized across all spheres of the intellectual and artistic production of the period. The forthcoming CSECS conference therefore invites participants to explore the various issues and facets involved in the eventful history of this pairing, which constituted one of the focal points of cultural and philosophical life in the 18th century. By way of illustration, here are some of the themes that could form the subject of a paper and which are of interest as much to philosophy, political science, the history of mentalities and material culture, as to art history, literary history and the history of language in the ‘classical age’ in the broadest sense (papers on the 17th century in relation to the Enlightenment are also welcome):

The various forms of pleasure (sensual pleasures, pleasures of imagination, etc.) and their hierarchy;
Ancient Epicureanism and modern materialisms;
Pleasure and the philosophy of the Enlightenment: the role of pleasure in debates on the genealogy of ideas, the origin of language, anatomy and nerve fibers, the properties of sensible matter, etc.;
Pleasure and the anthropology of the Enlightenment: the diversity of pleasures and cultural differences (ancient civilizations, non-European worlds), etc.;
The pleasures of fiction: tragic pleasure as a paradoxical pleasure, the pleasures of reading, etc.;
Aesthetic pleasure: pleasure as a criterion of aesthetic judgement, the role of taste, the question of color in painting, pleasure in music theory, etc.;
The pedagogy of the smile: the place of pleasure in the educational relationship, pleasure and learning, etc.;
The rhetoric and poetics of delectare (the demand for variety, short forms and minor genres, satire, witticisms and wordplay, men and women of wit, the art of conversation, epidictic speeches and ceremonial oratory, eloquence and the festive rituals of the indigenous peoples of the New World, etc.);
The pursuit of pleasure or comfort and the transformations in material culture: furniture, culinary recipes and the art of the table, architecture, decorative arts and interior design (the boudoir), the history of publishing (illustrations and engravings, page layout, formats), etc.;
The pleasure of being together: salons, cafés, social circles, parks and places to walk, etc.;
The pleasure and sense of nature: a shared appreciation of nature’s spectacle, the art of gardening, etc.;
Libertine behavior, free-thinking and self-care;
Forbidden pleasures and the pleasures of the forbidden: obscene literary and artistic genres, sexual practices that are marginal or condemned by Christian morality, etc.;
Gendered destinies of pleasure: female pleasures, male pleasures, etc.;
Pleasure and the culture of gallantry: the codification of romantic life, the art of pleasing and its rules, fashion and high society, gallantry and libertinage, etc.;
Pleasure and moral discourse: natural morality and the ‘society of hearts’ (sympathy and a sense of shared identity with others), ethics of desire, modern reinterpretations of ancient wisdom, etc.

Finally, pleasure is a subject of great contemporary interest, as demonstrated, among other things, by the exhibition organized in 2026–2027 by the Musée de la Civilisation (Québec) entitled Pleasures. A feel-good exhibition! (see https://mcq.org/en/discover/exhibitions/pleasures/). We therefore also encourage proposals for papers that focus on the legacy of the Enlightenment in contemporary conceptions of pleasure.

Guidelines for submitting a workshop proposal or an individual paper

If submitting a proposal for an individual paper, please include:

Your name, your affiliated institution and your email address;
A brief biographical and bibliographical note (100 to 150 words);
The title of your paper and an abstract (100 to 150 words).

In the case of a workshop proposal, this must include:

The topic and the names of the speakers (a workshop must have a minimum of three participants);
For each speaker, please provide:
- their name, their affiliated institution and their email address;
- a brief biographical and bibliographical note (100 to 150 words);
- the title of their presentation and an abstract (100 to 150 words).

Open calls for papers and workshops

In keeping with the tradition of the CSECS, workshops and papers on other topics relating to the 18th century are also welcome.

Further details

Participants may present their papers in English or French. Lumen, the Society’s journal, will publish a selection of essays based on the papers presented at this conference. Finally, all participants must have paid their CSECS membership fees in order to attend the conference.

Deadline

Proposals for workshops or individual papers must be submitted by 11 January 2027 at the latest to scedhs2027@uqtr.ca