Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture

Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, Volume 52, explores how history's dominant narratives have been challenged and reframed. It includes essays on Black art, decolonizing eighteenth-century studies, Native epistemologies, Female Wunderkind, biography, and the woman writer revisited. The volume also features contributions on the French Revolution, the jumbal, global supply chain, women's invisible labor, Alexander Pope's use of the oral, Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, and acoustics, history of illustration, and intertextual resonance.

Format: Hardback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 06 June 2023
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

The latest work in eighteenth-century studies is a groundbreaking exploration of the field, showcasing exciting new research across disciplines. In Volume 52 of "Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture," the editors have assembled a collection of essays that challenge and reframe the dominant narratives of history.

Anne Lafont's essay explores how early writings about Black art questioned the cultural negation of enslaved peoples' humanity. She demonstrates how these writings challenged the notion that enslaved individuals were less than human and instead highlighted their artistic and cultural contributions.

A cluster of essays on "Decolonizing Eighteenth-Century Studies" connects the current conditions under which we produce scholarship to the forms of exploitation that defined the eighteenth century. Erica Johnson Edwards chronicles how self-liberated people in colonial Haiti resisted their recapture by using advertisements for unclaimed runaways. Allison Cardon argues that Ottobah Cugoano's critiques of abolitionist discourse were more radical than we have recognized.

Another cluster focuses on Native epistemologies in the interactions between Indigenous Peoples and settlers in the American South. Alison DeSimone compares love songs to didactic and erotic literature, Carolina Blutrach recovers the contributions that diplomats' spouses made to cultural life, Jolene Zigarovich unearths evidence of women who transmitted property to other women, and two clusters focus on the Female Wunderkind in the Eighteenth Century and Biography and the Woman Writer Revisited.

Jeffrey Ravel investigates the use of playing cards in the French Revolution, while Christopher Hendricks recovers the history of the jumbal, a proto-cookie. A collaboratively written essay explores the movements of four commodities through the global supply chain. Mattie Burkert focuses on the invisible labor of women, and Andrew Black considers Alexander Pope's use of the oral.

Volume 52 concludes with a cluster on Oliver Goldsmith's "The Deserted Village," which offers a fresh perspective on this classic work.

This volume is a must-read for scholars and students of eighteenth-century culture, history, and literature. It provides a wealth of insights and perspectives that will deepen our understanding of this important period.

Weight: 882g
Dimension: 157 x 237 x 38 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781421445373