Dana Jalobeanu
Some read it as a utopia; others took it for a blueprint of a novel scientific society – in a time when science was not yet invented. But everybody read it and knew about it, and discussed about it: Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis. In fact, few books were more popular in the seventeenth century than the New Atlantis.
And yet, the New Atlantis is a book full of secrets. Why was it written the way it is? Is it really an unfinished book? Did Bacon planned to add a “frame of the law”?
And how about education? Other utopias devote a large amount of energy and space to teaching and the dissemination of new ideas. Many contains scenarios of teaching and learning, showing how the inhabitant of a particular city – or a particular island – becomes a full citizen of the republic..
But maybe the New Atlantis is not a utopia after all?
Join us on Friday to learn more about it. Dana Jalobeanu’s guests are Daniel Garber (Princeton Unviersity) and Doina Cristina Rusu (University of Groningen).
Friday at 8 pm on zoom (mark that this is the local time in Bucharest). If you want to join us, send me an email at dana.jalobeanu@gmail.com. We will also live-stream it on our youtube channel.
Let's talk about books 