In an attempt to better account for the impressive diversity of positions and relations that characterizes the eighteenth-century world, this collection proposes a new methodological frame, one that is less hierarchical in approach and more focused, instead, on the nature of these interactions, on their Addisonian “usefulness,” declared goals, and (un)intended results. By shifting focus from a cultural-historicist approach to sociability to the rhizomatic nature of eighteenth-century associations, this collection approaches them through new methodological lenses that include social network analysis, assemblage and graph theory, social media and digital humanities scholarship. Imagining the eighteenth-century world as a networked community rather than a competing one reflects a recent interest in novel forms of social interaction facilitated by new social media—from Internet forums to various types of social networking sites—and also signals the increasing involvement of academic communities in digital humanities projects that use new technologies to map out patterns of intellectual exchange. As such, the articles included in this collection demonstrate the benefits of applying interdisciplinary approaches to eighteenth-century sociability, and their role in shedding new light on the way public opinion was formed and ideas disseminated during pre-modern times. The issues addressed by our contributors are of paramount importance for understanding the eighteenth-century culture of sociability. They address, among other things, clubbing practices and social networking strategies (political, cultural, gender-based) in the eighteenth-century world, the role of clubs and other associations in “improving” knowledge and behaviors, conflicting views on publicity, literary and political alliances and their importance for an emerging celebrity culture, the role of cross-national networks in launching pan-European and transatlantic trends, Romantic modes of sociability, as well as the contribution of voluntary associations (clubs, literary salons, communities of readers, etc.) to the formation of the public sphere. This collection demonstrates how relevant social networking strategies were to the context of the eighteenth-century world, and how similar they are to the congeries of new practices shaping the digital public sphere of today.

Through both longer essays and shorter case studies, this book examines the relationship of European women from various countries and backgrounds to collecting, in order to explore the social practices and material and visual cultures of collecting in eighteenth-century Europe. It recovers their lives and examines their interests, their methodologies, and their collections and objects—some of which have rarely been studied before. The book also considers women’s role as producers, that is, creators of objects that were collected. Detailed examination of the artefacts—both visually, and in relation to their historical contexts—exposes new ways of thinking about collecting in relation to the arts and sciences in eighteenth-century Europe. The book is interdisciplinary in its makeup and brings together scholars from a wide range of fields. It will be of interest to those working in art history, material and visual culture, history of collecting, history of science, literary studies, women’s studies, gender studies, and art conservation.

This book deals with changing conditions and conceptions of authorship in the long eighteenth century, a period said to have witnessed the birth of the modern author. Challenging claims about the public sphere and the professional writer, it engages with recent work on print culture and the history of the book and takes up such under-treated topics as the forms of literary careers and the persistence of the Renaissance “republic of letters” into the “age of authors.”

This long-awaited second edition sees this classic text by a leading scholar given a new lease of life. It comes complete with a wealth of original material on a range of topics and takes into account the vital research that has been undertaken in the field in the last two decades. The book considers the development of the internal structure of Britain and explores the growing sense of British nationhood. It looks at the role of religion in matters of state and society, in addition to society's own move towards a class-based system. Commercial and imperial expansion, Britain's role in Europe and the early stages of liberalism are also examined. This new edition is fully updated to include: - Revised and thorough treatments of the themes of gender and religion and of the 1832 Reform Act - New sections on 'Commerce and Empire' and 'Britain and Europe' - Several new maps and charts - A revised introduction and a more extensive conclusion - Updated note sections and bibliographies The Long Eighteenth Century is the essential text for any student seeking to understand the nuances of this absorbing period of British history.

This book explores the ways in which the lives and routines of a wide range of people across different parts of Europe and the wider world were structured and played out through everyday practices. It focuses on the detail of individual lives and how these were shaped by spaces and places, by movement and material culture – both the buildings they occupied and the objects they used in their everyday lives. Drawing on original research by a range of established and emerging scholars, each chapter peers into the lives of people from various social groups as they went about their daily lives, from citizens on the streets to aristocrats at home in their country houses, and from the urban elite at leisure to seamen on board ships bound for the East Indies. For all these people, daily routines were important in structuring their lives, giving them a rhythm that was knowable and meaningful in its temporal regularity, be that daily, weekly, or seasonal. So too were their everyday encounters and relationships with other people, within and beyond the home; these shaped their practices, movements, and identities and thus served to mould society in a broader sense.

How do young scholars from the Arab world interact with English literature? Is literature relevant to their life? Can it help shape their reality? Is this affiliation new, or is there a pattern? This book poses some answers to these questions and more; it is ideal for university students and young intellectuals who seek further insight into world literature and literary theory. As this book shows, strong and courageous voices from the past, voices that transcend time and space, like Swift’s, must remain alive in the departments of English and world literature in this wasteland of globalization - a world dominated by cold science, materialism, and conflict. There is need for Swift to haunt us, for his ghost to wake us to the truth. Anarchist, anti-colonialist, nay-sayer, champion of the oppressed and conscious of the plight of women, Swift is the ultimate “therapeutic ironist”; what more can a pen do?

In the wake of the 1688 revolution, England’s transition to financial capitalism accelerated dramatically. Londoners witnessed the rise of credit-based currencies, securities markets, speculative bubbles, insurance schemes, and lotteries. Many understood these phenomena in terms shaped by their experience with another risky venture at the heart of London life: the public theater. Speculative Enterprise traces the links these observers drew between the operations of Drury Lane and Exchange Alley, including their hypercommercialism, dependence on collective opinion, and accessibility to people of different classes and genders. Mattie Burkert identifies a discursive "theater-finance nexus" at work in plays by Colley Cibber, Richard Steele, and Susanna Centlivre as well as in the vibrant eighteenth-century media landscape. As Burkert demonstrates, the stock market and the entertainment industry were recognized as deeply interconnected institutions that, when considered together, illuminated the nature of the public more broadly and gave rise to new modes of publicity and resistance. In telling this story, Speculative Enterprise combines methods from literary studies, theater and performance history, media theory, and work on print and material culture to provide a fresh understanding of the centrality of theater to public life in eighteenth-century London.

In this book, author D. R. M. Irving traces the emergence of such large-scale categories as "European music" and "Western music," showing how they originate from self-fashioning in contexts of intercultural comparison outside the European continent rather than the resolution of national aesthetic differences within it. Taken as a whole, this study demonstrates how reductive labels for the musics of a continent or a hemisphere often imply homogeneity and essentialism, and how a renewed critique of primary sources can help dismantle historiographical constructs that arose within narratives of musical pasts involving Europe.

This anthology gathers 368 poems by 80 British women poets of the long eighteenth century. Few of these poems have been reprinted since originally published, and all are crucial to understanding fully the literary history of women writers. Paula R. Backscheider and Catherine E. Ingrassia demonstrate the enormous diversity of poetry produced during this time by organizing the poems in three broad and deliberately overlapping categories: by genre, establishing that women wrote in all of the forms that men did with equal mastery and creativity; by theme, offering a revisionary look at the range of topics these writers addressed, including war, ecology, friendship, religion, and the stages of life; and by the poems’ more specific focus on the women’s experiences as writers. Backscheider and Ingrassia have selected poems that represent the best work of skilled poets, creating a wonderful mix of canonical and little-known pieces. They include the complete texts of longer poems that are abridged or omitted in other collections. Their substantial part introductions, textual notes, bibliographical information, and biographical sketches situate the poets and their writings within the cultural and political milieu in which they appeared. To generate further scholarship on this subject, this essential anthology puts primary texts in front of students, scholars, and general readers. It fills the persistent need to document women’s poetic expression during the long eighteenth century and to rewrite the literary history of the period, a history from which women have largely been excluded.