New center offers chance for extensive graduate study of 18th century

Graduate students will now be able to combine studies of the 18th century as a result of the new Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies, which was inaugurated Wednesday night in the School of Fine Arts.\nThe Center is an interdisciplinary network of more than 20 faculty members and 20 graduate students from departments such as French and Italian, Germanic studies, history, English, religious studies, comparative literature and Jewish studies.\nMore than 120 people came to the event to help celebrate the opening of the center, which is the only one of its kind and largest in the world, said Fritz Breithaupt, professor of Germanic Studies.\n"Harvard (University) and UCLA offer smaller programs," Breithaupt said. "But here we have many different disciplines in the program, and that is unique."\nDror Wahrman, the director of the center, said he and his faculty are very excited about the inauguration after six years of planning. Faculty members who taught courses and did research on the 18th century met frequently during those years and realized they could make a connection between their disciplines, Breithaupt said.\nThe planners decided to organize a workshop based on the topic "Signs of the Self," which explored the transition to a sense of self-worth in the 18th century.\n"After the success of the first conference, we decided to do it every year," Breithaupt said.\nThroughout the next few years, graduate students eventually became involved in the conversations.\n"The Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Kumble Subbaswamy, noticed the involvement and asked how he could help," Breithaupt said. "So he funded the workshops. With that money and attention we received, we were about to create the center."\nNow that the center is official, COAS has funded the organization for its events during the next five years, compared to its previous staggered allotments of funds.\nRight now, the center offers a Ph.D. minor to students, but also offers different ways for students to get involved in the studies. Graduate student Chrisine Lehleiter, the first student to apply for the Ph.D. minor in 18th century studies, created an exhibition in the Lilly Library on the "Signs of the Self" workshop.\n"I created different showcases that showed aspects of the self," Lehleiter said. "I was able to incorporate many useful things from the Lilly Library for my showcases."\nThis year's workshop, titled "Custom, Ritual, Habit, Fetish: The Idols of the Eighteenth Century," will be held in May. Attendees of the workshop will come from all parts of the nation and from abroad to participate in the event, Breithaupt said.\nParticipants in the center meet every three to four weeks and discuss a topic in detail concerning the eighteenth century.\n"Bringing everyone together is a way to raise our expectations," Breithaupt said.\nThe center does not directly offer anything specifically to undergraduate students, but Breithaupt said that might change in the future.\n"We can explore different options and see there the interest is," he said. "Who knows, ten years from now there could be a whole eighteenth century department." \n-- Contact staff writer Lori Snow at losnow@indiana.edu.