Cultures of Knowledge: An Intellectual Geography of the Seventeenth-Century Republic of Letters

Exploring the epistolary treasures of Uppsala University Library.

Demonstrating the catalogue at Uppsala University Library.

Last week provided us with an exciting opportunity to share the ongoing work of the Project, specifically relating to our union catalogue of early modern correspondence, at two of the most important research libraries in Sweden. In a whistle-stop tour of the Scandinavian state – one of the great powers of early modern Europe, with one of the most exciting epistolary collections in the world today – Project Director Howard Hotson visited Uppsala University Library (the Carolina Rediviva) and the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm, meeting their directors and other key library personnel; exploring their extensive holdings of early modern letters; and discussing our plans for the union catalogue with seminar audiences. The itinerary concluded in the Department of Literature and History at Stockholm University, where Howard presented his ongoing work on the intellectual geography of Ramism (a theme soon to be revisited in the context of our 2011 conference). We would like to thank everyone involved with the visit – especially Professor Erland Sellberg of the University of Stockholm, Dr Ulf Göransson and Håkan Hallberg of Uppsala University Library, and Dr Otfried Czaika of the National Library of Sweden – for their extremely generous Scandinavian hospitality, with a special ‘shout-out’ to Dr Per Landgren, a visiting scholar with the University of Oxford’s MEHRC, who conceived the idea, generously mobilised his scholarly connections on our behalf, and (as if this were not enough) also did most of the logistical legwork. Thanks, Per!

Introducing the catalogue at the National Library of Sweden, Stockholm.

Discussing intellectual geography at the University of Stockholm.