Response by Prof. Jonathan Sheehan University of California at Berkeley

Moderated by Dr. Andrew McKenzie-McHarg Senior Research Fellow, IRCI

Today choice is fundamental to definitions of freedom, linking capitalism to human rights and democracy. But this has not always been the case. This talk will consider the nature and meaning of choice making in early modern Europe, how the historian can recover them, and why they might matter now.

Prof. Sophia Rosenfeld is an intellectual and cultural historian of Europe and America since 1650. She has published A Revolution in Language: The Problem of Signs in Late Eighteenth-Century France (2001), Common Sense: A Political History (2011), Democracy and Truth: A Short History (2019) and numerous articles on the Enlightenment, the history of revolutions, and their legacies in modern democracy.

For further information, contact Prof. Christopher Ocker, Director of the MEMS Program at IRCI: chris.ocker@acu.edu.au