Production and Circulation of Technical Knowledge on Building Sites at the End of the Eighteenth Century

This article aims to shed light on the exchange of technical knowledge between architects, master craftsmen and workmen on building sites at the end of the eighteenth century. In the Age of Enlightenment, major building sites were places where a large number of skilled practitioners of various ranks met (engineers, architects, contractors, experts, craftsmen). These were therefore places where the exchange of knowledge and know-how occurred but also places of struggle for power and knowledge. The article examines these exchanges and struggles using the case study of the building site for the dome of the Halle au Blé in Paris (1782-1783).

Travelling to improve yourself and to increase common good of humankind and your country: recommendations of Leopold von Berchtold in the context of the Enlightenement discourse

The recommendations of the Bohemian philanthropist of the late eighteenth century Leopold von Berchtold to travelers were not unique: there were others before and after. In the previous centuries other authors also tended to recommend their readers to pay attention to the economic state of foreign countries and provided them with a long list of questions they had to ask the people in the country of their destination. However, Berchtold’s recommendations were the product of his time, the age of Enlightenment, and they mentioned numerous topics and problems characteristic for that period. For instance, the author believed that self-improvement of a traveler had to begin long before the start of the trip. In Berchtold’s opinion, a traveler prepared for the journey was a kind of ideal, universal superhuman who was physically proficient, expert in all spheres of science, mechanics, economics, and medicine, who knew many languages, and was a talented artist and musician. Among the topics related to the Enlightenment, to which the author paid attention, were, for instance, patriotism of the traveler, which he understood as civil virtue, destined to improve not only his own country but also the whole of humankind. Moreover, patriotism in Berchtold’s interpretation did not contradict cosmopolitanism but rather it based itself on it. Philanthropy – which in the eighteenth century was a kind of secular religion – also featured a lot in Berchtold’s recommendations. Finally, the theme of doubt, as a basis for a critical assessment of reality and verification of authorities, pierced through the whole text of Leopold Berchtold. So did the topic of the public sphere, especially sociability and creation of social networks. The recommendations of Berchtold are thus valuable as a source that can tell a lot about the age of Enlightenment – not only about the practical side of traveling but also about the intellectual history of that period.

Futuring Africa: Immature Men and the Utility of Hope in Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

The purpose of this paper is to provide a re-reading of Armah as a writer of decadence and frustration. I argue that such readings remain prejudiced since scholars rarely identify the philosophy of Kant as a particularly useful resource which will aid one to understand the full complexity of Armah’s vision for postcolonial Ghana. Drawing on Kant’s age of enlightenment, this paper redeems Armah’s debut of pejorism by locating the novel’s diagnostic function within the complex paradigms of maturity and immaturity. Thus, this paper examines the ambiguities of Armah’s characterization and how it strengthens the utopian sensibilities embedded in the text. The paper concludes that Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born remains therapeutic for the advent of the new nation.