World of Learning, Sociability and City  in early Eighteenth Century France

In this last paper, I wish to present the research project I am currently working on, which is about the connection between the world of learning and scholars and the emergence of urban identities in Europe in the first half of the 18th century. To speak in broader terms, what I would like to grasp is how the circulation of knowledge shaped the making of the great cultural metropolises in the period between the 17th and the 18th century, mainly in a few sites : Paris, Lyon, London, Edinburgh,..