The Eighteenth Centuries : Global Networks of Enlightenment

Today, when "globalization" is a buzzword invoked in nearly every realm, we turn back to the eighteenth century and witness the inherent globalization of its desires and, at times, its accomplishments. During the chronological eighteenth century, learning and knowledge were intimately connected across disciplinary and geographical boundaries, yet the connections themselves are largely unstudied. In The Eighteenth Centuries, twenty-two scholars across disciplines address the idea of plural Enlightenments and a global eighteenth century, transcending the demarcations that long limited our grasp of the period’s breadth and depth. Engaging concepts that span divisions of chronology and continent, these essays address topics ranging from mechanist biology, painted geographies, and revolutionary opera to Americanization, theatrical subversion of marriage, and plantation architecture. Weaving together many disparate threads of the historical tapestry we call the Enlightenment, this volume illuminates our understanding of the interconnectedness of the eighteenth centuries. Knowledge and the lives of books : introduction / Sophia Rosenfeld -- Enlightenment, some assembly required / Brad Pasanek and Chad Wellmon -- An inventory of the estate of William Strahan in 1759 / Michael Pickard -- Understanding an obscure text : the fortunate foundlings and the limits of interdisciplinarity / Patricia Meyer Spacks -- Human economies : introduction / Andrew O'shaughnessy -- How long does blood last? Degeneration as Blanqueamiento in the Americas / Ruth Hill -- Thomas Jefferson : breeding and buying horses, connecting family, friends, and neighbors / Carrie B. Douglass -- The Jamaican plantation : industrial, global, contested / Louis P. Nelson -- Artists' geographies : introduction / Richard Will -- Emotional geographies : Watteau and the fate of women / Mary D. Sheriff -- Painting New England in the Dutch West Indies : John Greenwood's sea captains carousing in Surinam / Katelyn D. Crawford -- Dramatic politics : introduction / Bonnie Gordon -- Mozart and the American Revolution / Pierpaolo Polzonetti -- The drama of marriage in eighteenth-century Venice : Carlo Goldoni's la Locandiera / Adrienne Ward -- Performances of suffering and the stagecraft of sympathy / Jennifer Reed -- The aesthetics of excess : Rococo vestiges of tartuffe in Isla's Father Gerundio / Casey R. Eriksen -- About Mapscholar / James P. Ambuske and Carol Guarnieri During the chronological eighteenth century, learning and knowledge were intimately connected across disciplinary and geographical boundaries, yet the connections themselves are largely unstudied. In this volume scholars address the idea of plural Enlightenments and a global eighteenth century, transcending the demarcations that long limited our grasp of the period's breadth and depth. "With essays on book history, literature, anthropology, music, theater, art and architecture, this book examines the Enlightenment across a range of disciplines and geographical boundaries"-- Provided by publisher