On November 8 and 9, 2021 the Académie royale de Belgique hosted an international symposium that attempted to assess what is left of Voltairian irony in these times of extreme political correctness.
This event was organised with the support of the Wiener-Anspach Foundation and under the academic supervision of Valérie André (Professor at the ULB Department of Languages and Letters and a member of the FWA Scientific Board). It gathered several international scholars, including Oxford academics Nicholas Cronk, Patrick McGuinness and Catriona Seth, two of which have been involved in FWA-funded collaborative projects between the ULB and the University of Oxford.
Prof. Cronk is the Director of the Voltaire Foundation in Oxford, which was granted funding from 2010 to 2012 in the framework of the publication of Voltaire’s Œuvres complètes. More information about this collaborative project with Prof. Bruno Bernard (ULB Groupe d’étude du 18 siècle) can be found in the Research Projects section of our website.
Together with Prof. André, Catriona Seth is the promoter of the research project « Cat-19 – Panorama of the French-language novel in the early 19th century », supported by the Foundation from 2018 to 2020.
Professors André, Cronk and Seth spoke on the first day of the symposium, after the introductory remarks by Prof. Didier Viviers, Permanent Secretary of the Académie Royale de Belgique and President of the Wiener – Anspach Foundation. The complete programme of the event is available on the website of the Académie.