Thomas Paine & Lewes

Revolution & Reason- See Festival Events Page 

Opening event at 10 am on the 4th July in the Corn Exchange Lewes Town Hall

Five leading experts on Thomas Paine, convened by Dr Richard Whatmore

FREE AND OPEN TO ALL

Hosted by the Mayor of Lewes, Amanda Dean

Chaired by the deputy Mayor of Lewes, Dr Mike Turner

 THE SUSSEX CENTRE FOR INTELLECTUAL HISTORY PRESENT:

THE TOM PAINE FORUM: POLITICS, REVOLUTION AND HISTORY

INVITED SPEAKERS AND OPEN DISCUSSION

Professor Gareth Stedman-Jones (Cambridge): ‘Tom Paine and the French Revolution’

Professor Jon Mee (Warwick): ‘The Trial of Tom Paine’

Dr Mark Philp (Oxford): ‘Tom Paine the great democrat?’

11.30-11.45 Break for coffee/tea

12.00-12.45

Professor John Barrell (York): ‘Portraits and caricatures of Paine’

Professor Iain Hampsher-Monk (Exeter): ‘Tom Paine and the escape from history’

 

Discussion and debate with five leading scholars of 18th century political thought. A ten minute presentation from each speaker on an aspect of Paine’s life and work, followed by questions from the audience

Speakers:

·       John Barrell has published widely on the literature, history and art of the 18th and 19th centuries in Britain, focusing on language, landscape, law, empire, theories of society and progress, and the theory of painting. He is a professor at the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, University of York.

·       Professor John Mee, University of Warwick, is currently a Major Leverhulme Research Fellow. This current project is concerned with literature, conversation, and contention 1776 – 1832. His other research interests include British popular radicalism in the 1790s; literature, censorship, and the law; Marxist literary theory; communicative ethics; William Blake; Anna Laetitia Barbauld; Mary Wollstonecroft; and William Godwin.

·        Gareth Stedman-Jones is Professor of Political Science, History Faculty, Cambridge University. He is also Director of the Centre for History and Economics at King’s College, Cambridge, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard.

·       Dr. Mark Philp lectures in Politics at the University of Oxford. He was also the first Head of the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford. His research includes political theory and political sociology, as well as the history of political thought and British history at the time of the French Revolution.

·       Iain Hampsher-Monk is Professor of Politics at Exeter University. He co-founded the top-ranked journal History of Political Thought and wrote the prize-winning A History of Modern Political Thought, now in its eleventh printing. His main research focus is in early modern European political thought, including republican thought and its naturalisation in British political thinking; British 17th and 18th century radicalism; and the political thought of Edmund Burke and his contemporaries

The Convenor of this event is Dr Richard Whatmore, Associate Director of the Sussex Centre for Intellectual History (University of Sussex) and a Fellow of Royal Historical Society. His research area is French, British and Swiss intellectual history during the 18th and early 19th centuries.