The research will be based on the creation of annotated bibliographies, the preparation of archival and printed materials related to selected Enlightenment authors, and the critical selection, analysis, and interpretation of texts relevant to intellectual and literary history.

Each researcher will examine the works and biographies of key authors through the lens of their own research focus, placing them within their respective Lebenswelten—the phenomenological concept of “lifeworlds”—including national and supranational, religious, professional, institutional, and socio-cultural contexts.

Special attention will be given to the social history of ideas, with an emphasis on studying correspondence to trace transnational networks of Enlightenment actors and their participation in the European Republic of Letters (res publica litteraria). The project will investigate both the local function of Enlightenment discourses and their place within contemporary debates and broader European currents.

Rather than relying on outdated paradigms of delay, backwardness, or passive reception, the project will treat peripheral case studies as active and original contributions to the Enlightenment as a pan-European phenomenon.