A selection of the most exciting current work in eighteenth-century studies. Focusing on the fraught ways in which communities are defined, volume 51 of Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture showcases groundbreaking research in all of the disciplines that constitute eighteenth-century studies. An article by Aaron Santesso and David Rosen intervenes in the current debates over "critique" by excavating a theory of ethical reading embedded in liberalism. In a similar mode, Jesslyn Whittell reads Christopher Smart's Jubilate Agno as a "stuplime" forerunner to contemporary experimental poetry. Considering communities that emerge around artworks, Aaron Gabriel Montalvo examines Joseph Highmore's Pamela paintings for the ways in which they inculcated new forms of moral spectatorship, while Stacey Jocoy shows how Robert Burns's ballad collections manipulated both tunes and lyrics in order to fashion a new vision of Scottish culture. Renee Bryzik finds that asymmetrical friendships in eighteenth-century novels helped unravel ideological prejudices shaped by settler colonialism. Nathan D. Brown presents a history of sweetness that goes beyond Caribbean plantations by reassessing the hopes placed upon maple sugar. Meanwhile, Dario Galvao argues that Buffon distinguished humans from animals by virtue of the former's capacity for domination, and Noel Chevalier focuses on the ways in which pirates served as monstrous stand-ins for commercial corruption. This volume of SECC also includes contributions from Li Qi Peh, Maximillian E. Novak, and Judith Stuchiner that explore Daniel Defoe's thinking about individualism, community, and religious instruction. The volume concludes with a cluster of short essays responding to the methodological challenges posed by Daniel O'Quinn's Engaging the Ottoman Empire. Contributors: Nathan D. Brown, Renee Bryzik, Katherine Calvin, Noel Chevalier, Zirwat Chowdhury, Ashley L. Cohen, Angelina Del Balzo, Lynn Festa, Douglas Fordham, Dario Galvao, Stacey Jocoy, Aaron Gabriel Montalvo, Maximillian E. Novak, Daniel O'Quinn, Li Qi Peh, David Rosen, Aaron Santesso, Judith Stuchiner, Charlotte Sussman, Jesslyn Whittell
David A. Brewer is an associate professor of English at Ohio State University. He is the coauthor, most recently, of The Book in Britain: A Historical Introduction. Crystal B. Lake is a professor of English languages and literature at Wright State University. She is the author of Artifacts: How We Think and Write About Found Objects.
Liberal Theory and Eighteenth-Century Criticism, by David Rosen and Aaron Santesso Novel Paintings: Learning to Read Art Through Joseph Highmore's Adventures of Pamela, by Aaron Gabriel Montalvo "A tedious accumulation of nothing": Christopher Smart, Imperialist Archives, and Mechanical Poetry in the Eighteenth Century, by Jesslyn Whittell Robert Burns and the Refashioning of Scottish Identity through Songs, by Stacey Jocoy Animal Domestication and Human-Animal Difference in Buffon's Natural History, by Dario Galvo Marvelous Maples: Visions of Maple Sugar in New France, 1691-1761, by Nathan D. Brown Pirate Vices, Public Benefits: The Social Ethics of Piracy in the 1720s, by Noel Chevalier Defoe's "Mobbish" Utopias, by Maximillian E. Novak Fragile Communities in the Crusoe Trilogy, by Li Qi Peh Family Instruction in Defoe's Further Adventures: Consider the Children, by Judith Stuchiner Friendship, Not Freedom: Dependent Friends in the Late Eighteenth-Century Novel, by Renee Bryzik The Art of Intercultural Engagement: A Cluster on Daniel O'Quinn's Engaging the Ottoman Empire: Vexed Mediations, 1690-1815 Introduction: Daniel O'Quinn's Melancholy Cosmopolitanism, by Ashley L. Cohen The Archive and the Repertoire of the Treaty of Karlowitz, by Angelina del Balzo Empire and Modern Media: Vanmour or less, by Douglas Fordham Wrinkles in Imperial Time, by Lynn Festa Between Geographic and Conceptual Fields: Mapping Microhistories in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Empire, by Katherine Calvin Rabble, Rubble, Repeat, by Zirwat Chowdhury On Walls, Bridges, and Temporal Folds: Epic, Empire, and Neoclassicism Revisited, by Charlotte Sussman What Eludes Us, by Daniel O'Quinn
A selection of the most exciting current work in eighteenth-century studies.
