Conveners: Mirjam Hähnle (GHIL) and Ulinka Rublack (University of Cambridge)

Johann Valentin Andreae’s Christianopolis (1619) has long been recognized as the most important utopian text to have been produced in early modern Germany. The workshop focuses on Andreae’s conception of the natural world within Christianopolis, especially in relation to contemporary religious ideas and knowledge about the non-human world. The aim is to re-examine Christianopolis as a lens through which to view the emerging epistemologies of the early seventeenth century. The closed workshop brings researchers studying Andreae’s work together with specialists of early modern utopianism and cultures of natural knowledge production in the seventeenth century more generally. It will be accompanied by a public keynote by Professor Pamela Smith (Columbia University), to be held on 5 March 2026 at Pushkin House.

The workshop is for invited attendees only but the keynote lecture is open to the public.