Hemispheres and Stratospheres: The Idea and Experience of Distance in the International Enlightenment (Transits: Literature, Thought & Culture, 1650-1850)

"Nowhere is distance so near-at-hand as in Enlightenment culture. Whether in the telescopic surveys of early astronomers, the panoramas of painters, the diaries of travelers, the prospects of landscape architects, or the tales of novelists, distance is never far in the background of the works and deeds of long-eighteenth-century artists, authors, and adventurers. Hemispheres and Stratospheres draws that background into the foreground. Recognizing distance as a central concern of the Enlightenment, this volume offers eight essays on distance in art and literature; on cultural transmission and exchange over distance; and on distance as a topic in science, a theme in literature, and a central issue in modern research methods. Through studies of landscape gardens, architecture, imaginary voyages, transcontinental philosophical exchange, and cosmological poetry, Hemispheres and Stratospheres unfurls the early history of a distance culture that influences our own era of global information exchange, long-haul flights, colossal skyscrapers, and space tourism"-- Provided by publisher Dedication Contents Introduction: Hemispheresand Stratospheres: The Idea and Experience of Distance in the International Enlightenment • Kevin L. Cope Part One: Best Seen at a Distance: The Art of the Far-Away 1 Looking Down: Observations on Elevation, Prospect Vision, and Eighteenth-Century Imagination • Roger D. Lund 2 Space and the Meaning of Distance in Bernardo Vittone’s Architecture • William Stargard 3 Change of Air, Change of Self: Long Distance and Human Adaptability in Imaginary Voyages of the Long Eighteenth Century • Bärbel Czennia Part Tow: Culture over and as Distance 4 Distant Lands, Distant Races, Distant Cultures: Two Eighteenth-Century South Indian Priests Go to Europe • Brijraj Singh 5 Connecting Hemispheres, Playing with Distance: Rammohun Roy, the Indian Transnationalist • Chandrava Chakravarty Part Three: The Nature of Distance 6 New Science, Distant Reading, and Distance as Intersubjectivity • Rachel Mann 7 Orbiting Iambs: Enlightenment Cosmology and Conveniently Condensed Immensities • Kevin L. Cope 8 Journeys to the Edge: The Idea and Experience of Distance in Archival Research • Phyllis Thompson Acknowledgment Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index Пустая страница Recognizing distance as a central concern of the Enlightenment, this volume offers eight essays on distance in art and literature; on cultural transmission and exchange over distance; and on distance as a topic in science, a theme in literature, and a central issue in modern research methods. Through studies of landscape gardens, architecture, imaginary voyages, transcontinental philosophical exchange, and cosmological poetry, Hemispheres and Stratospheres unfurls the early history of a distance culture that influences our own era of global information exchange, long-haul flights, colossal skyscrapers, and space tourism. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.