Talk:Collège de Sorbonne

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Given that the Sorbonne, in all of its permutations and subdivisions, has produced some of the West's greatest thinkers, scientists, authors, and the like, why does one not indicate this in a more forthright manner in the article? After all, the articles on the Oxford and Cambridge institutions use adjectival clauses to indicate their importance and prestige. With Nobel prize winners in faculty and from its student body, surely the Sorbonne deserves a more proactive adjective than the mere, "historic," as in "historic Université de Paris." Please, with a group of students and faculty that range from Mdme Curie to de Beauvoir, Fanon to Trudeau, Durkheim, to Derrida, the Sorbonne deserves something a bit more rousing than "historic."

M.Mason, Columbia University, 1997

The reason is that you have not yet written that part of the article. Go ahead! / up◦land 10:06, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

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It is now distributed in several separate universities.

Meaning what exactly? Multiple campuses of one institution? Independent institutions that simply have a common name slapped on them? ...? --Brion

The University of Paris was split in the early 1970s into several universities. There are now 13 Universities of Paris: University Paris I to University Paris XIII. The Sorbonne main campus is now split for use by some of these, some of which carry the "Sorbonne" as part of their name. The campus also has the Rector's offices. David.Monniaux 20:04, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

It was originally created for the use of 20 theology students in 1257 as Collège de Sorbonne by Robert de Sorbon (1201-1274), a chaplain and confessor to King Louis IX of France. It quickly built a prodigious reputation as a center for learning, and by the 13th century there were as many as twenty thousand foreign students resident in the city, making Paris the capital of knowledge of the Western world. Today, foreign students still make up a significant part of its campus.

Since a date midway through the 13th century (1257) is already mentioned in the paragraph, should 'by the 13th century' be changed to 'by the end of the 13th century', or some other date? Ground 11:22, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Moving and merging

I have started a rewrite of the University of Paris article and merged the history section of the Sorbonne article with that one. The list of notable people has been broken out as a List of University of Paris people.

It is possible that there should be a separate article on the the college, but it should probably be under the title Collège de Sorbonne to avoid ambiguity. This page ("Sorbonne") could still be on the architectural history of the Sorbonne, but as the university as such is older than the Sorbonne and transcends it in various ways, it is better to place the stuff dealing with the university in general under the title "University of Paris". Most links to the Sorbonne, however, probably refer to the university, so for the time being I make this a redirect. / up◦land 23:16, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As Uppland doesn't seem to be doing much these days on University of Paris and this article still seems to contain substantial information not merged (as far as I can tell) elsewhere, I'm taking the liberty of reverting this from a redirect. Please restore the redirect if I'm edited in error. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 8 July 2005 01:38 (UTC)

Could you please explain what you don't see merged elsewhere? up◦land 8 July 2005 04:43 (UTC)

Well, for instance, looking at this Sorbonne article, I don't see any mention of Coubertin in the University of Paris article. Is it mentioned elsewhere?

Another odd thing is that Erasmus is listed as alumnus on fr:Sorbonne but does not appear anywhere here (not even on List of University of Paris people).

I do think it's unhelpful to conflate the historic Sorbonne with the post-1968 University of Paris, although the name remains in various guises. The equivalent articles in the French wikipedia seem to me to have the right balance, although they're much less complete than the English versions. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 8 July 2005 06:41 (UTC)

I am not the one doing the conflating. The Sorbonne article you just resurrected is conflating the Sorbonne with the university, and most of its content has been more appropriately merged elsewhere (I may have missed Coubertin when doing the merge, but you can re-add it where relevant). up◦land 8 July 2005 07:47 (UTC)

OK, I put the Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Sorbonne (which is in the public domain) here. It is wikified and changed on some points, but it still needs some editing. Considering the use of "Sorbonne" as synonymous with the University appears to be a 20th century innovation (in the original CE article it isn't even mentioned), the two things should be kept apart. The Cath. Enc. also has a decent article on the University, which might be worked into that article. up◦land 09:47, 19 July 2005 (UTC)