Title

From an internationalist cause to a new school knowledge: Esperanto at school (20th century)

Abstract

From the end of the 19th century, the idea of an international auxiliary language in a multilingual world, already evoked two centuries earlier, crystallizes and spreads within the framework of a broad internationalist impulse. For its promoters, Esperanto was intended to become the international auxiliary language common to all the countries of the world, and the introduction of its teaching in public schools began to be an issue that was taken up by actors from various fields, giving rise to reflections and practical experiments, not without any resistances. In this talk, I present my current research project on the history of Esperanto teaching in the 20th century, which I approach from a transnational perspective, with a particular focus on Europe. In this context, I mention the different sources I use for my analysis. Then, based on various individual and collective actors who have worked to promote the cause of Esperanto in schools, as well as on some concrete experiences of teaching Esperanto, I give some answers to the following questions: how do these actors, with their diverse profiles and fields of expertise, take up the cause of Esperanto at school? How has Esperanto been transposed into school knowledge, for what educational purposes and according to what modes of transmission?

About the ACLC seminar series

The ACLC seminar series is a two weekly lecture series organized by the ACLC, research school for linguistics of the Faculty of Humanities.