The Project
My name is Joëlle Weis and I am a PhD student in history at the universities of Luxembourg and Vienna, where my supervisors are Michel Margue and Thomas Winkelbauer. (full bio) I was very lucky to get funding by the Fonds National de la Recherche in Luxembourg, which allows me to conduct my own research project.
My project is entitled Johann Friedrich Schannat (1683-1739) and the Republic of Letters. Communication, Practices and Identities in Critical Scholarship on the Eve of Enlightenment and is centered around the person of Johann Friedrich Schannat, a historian born in Luxembourg.
By analyzing the correspondence and works of this “compatriot” of mine, I want to show how he contributed to the development of historical-critical scholarship. Even though he is (at least in Lux) mostly unknown, Schannat was one of the leading historians of the first half of the 18th century and is representative for many scholars of that time. His international career led him to many places in Europe, among others Paris, Vienna, Prague and Rome, where he offered his historiographical services to many princes and other patrons, a situation which made him dependent on their goodwill. Sharing the same fate as many humanists today, Schannat had to constantly look for new employment and did this mainly with the help of his friends and acquaintances. His network consisted mostly of members of the res publica literaria and the letters of this scholarly community are very valuable sources to today’s historians for erudite life and work.
For Schannat, I could find (so far) around 500 letters in his papers in the National Archives in Prague and in the Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg. I hope that my analysis of those letters can represent a valuable contribution to the history of erudition. Combining these findings with an examination of Schannat’s works, my research will give an overview of (1) communication channels and the functioning of the Republic of Letters, (2)epistemic practices, work processes, work conditions and employed methods, as well as (3) of the construction and the attribution of identities. On the basis of these findings, the final aim of my project is the characterization of a newly emerging critical scholarship and an analysis of its contribution to the development towards today’s historiography.