Elaine Chalus – författare

For some time before his death in July 2015, former colleagues and students of Paul Langford had discussed the possibility of organising a festschrift to celebrate his remarkable contribution to eighteenth-century history. It was planned for 2019 to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the appearance of his seminal A Polite and Commercial People, the opening volume in the New Oxford History of England series, Paul's best-known and most influential publication. He was delighted to hear of these plans and the tragic news of his death only made the contributors more determined to see the project through to completion. The importance of A Polite and Commercial People within its own time is unquestionable. Not only did it provide a powerful new vision of eighteenth-century Britain, but it also played a vital part in reviving interest in, and expanding ways of thinking about, Georgian history. As the thirteen contributors to this volume amply testify, any review of the field from the 1980s onwards cannot ignore the profound effect Paul's research had on the social and political publications in his field. This collection of essays combines reflection on the impact of Paul's work with further engagement with the central questions he posed. In particular, it serves to re-connect various recent avenues of Georgian studies, bringing together diverse themes present in Paul's scholarship, but which are often studied independently of each other. As such, it aims to provide a fitting tribute to Paul's work and impact, and a wider reassessment of the current direction of eighteenth-century studies.

Based on wide-ranging, original research into political, personal, and general correspondences across a period of significant social and political change, this book explores the gendered nature of politics and political life in eighteenth-century England by focusing on the political involvement of female members of the political elite. Elaine Chalus challenges the notion that only exceptional women were involved in politics, that their participation was necessarily limited and indirect, and that their involvement was inevitably declining after the 1784 Westminster Election. While exceptional women did exist and gender did condition women's participation, the personal, social, and particularly the familial nature of eighteenth-century politics provided more women with a wider variety of opportunities for involvement than ever before. Women from politically active families grew up with politics, absorbing its rituals, and their own involvement extended from politicized socializing up to borough control and election management. Their participation was often accepted, expected, or even demanded, depending upon family traditions, personal abilities, and the demands of political expediency. Chalus reveals that, although women's involvement in political life was always potentially more problematic than men's, given contemporary concerns about the links between sex, politics, and corruption, their participation was largely unproblematic as long as their activities could be explained by recourse to a familial model which depicted their participation as subordinate and supportive of men's. It was when they came to be seen as the leading political actors in a cause that they overstepped the mark and became targets of sexualized criticism. Contemporary critics worried that politically active women posed a threat to male polity, but what actually made them threatening was that they proved that women were not politically incompetent and implicitly demonstrated that gender was not a reason for political exclusion. Although the dividing line between acceptable and unacceptable female political behaviours was sharper from the late eighteenth century onward, Chalus suggests that women who were willing to work creatively within the familial model could and did remain politically active into - and through - the nineteenth century.

The Routledge History of Loneliness takes a multidisciplinary approach to the history of a modern emotion, exploring its form and development across cultures from the seventeenth century to the present.Bringing together thirty scholars from various disciplines, including history, anthropology, philosophy, literature and art history, the volume considers how loneliness was represented in art and literature, conceptualised by philosophers and writers and described by people in their personal narratives. It considers loneliness as a feeling so often defined in contrast to sociability and affective connections, particularly attending to loneliness in relation to the family, household and community. Acknowledging that loneliness is a relatively novel term in English, the book explores its precedents in ideas about solitude, melancholy and nostalgia, as well as how it might be considered in cross-cultural perspectives.With wide appeal to students and researchers in a variety of subjects, including the history of emotions, social sciences and literature, this volume brings a critical historical perspective to an emotion with contemporary significance.Chapter [#] of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

Towns are imagined, lived and experienced, as much as they are conceived and constructed. They reflect cultural and intellectual currents, prevailing economic climates and unresolved tensions. They are physical entities, shaped by topography, time and technology, as well as social and spatial constructs. They are also always gendered and contested spaces. This volume, the last from the Gender in the European Town (GENETON) project, approaches life in the European town over time and across class and national boundaries. Through contextualized case studies, it provides scholars and students with new research—snapshots—of contemporary physical and built environments that explores how contemporary urban residents experienced and deployed gendered urban spaces over an important period of modernization.

Placing women’s experiences in the context of the major social, economic and cultural shifts that accompanied the industrial and commercial transformations of this period, Hannah Barker and Elaine Chalus paint a fascinating picture of the change, revolution, and continuity that were encountered by women of this time.A thorough and well-balanced selection of individual chapters by leading field experts and dynamic new scholars, combine original research with a discussion of current secondary literature, and the contributors examine areas as diverse as the Enlightenment, politics, religion, education, sexuality, family, work, poverty, and consumption. The authors most importantly realise that female historical experience is not generic, and that it can be significantly affected by factors such as social status, location, age, race and religion.Providing a captivating overview of women and their lives, this book is an essential purchase for the study of women’s history, and, providing delightful little gems of knowledge and insight, it will also appeal to any reader with an interest in this fascinating topic.

Placing women’s experiences in the context of the major social, economic and cultural shifts that accompanied the industrial and commercial transformations of this period, Hannah Barker and Elaine Chalus paint a fascinating picture of the change, revolution, and continuity that were encountered by women of this time.A thorough and well-balanced selection of individual chapters by leading field experts and dynamic new scholars, combine original research with a discussion of current secondary literature, and the contributors examine areas as diverse as the Enlightenment, politics, religion, education, sexuality, family, work, poverty, and consumption. The authors most importantly realise that female historical experience is not generic, and that it can be significantly affected by factors such as social status, location, age, race and religion.Providing a captivating overview of women and their lives, this book is an essential purchase for the study of women’s history, and, providing delightful little gems of knowledge and insight, it will also appeal to any reader with an interest in this fascinating topic.

Towns are imagined, lived and experienced, as much as they are conceived and constructed. They reflect cultural and intellectual currents, prevailing economic climates and unresolved tensions. They are physical entities, shaped by topography, time and technology, as well as social and spatial constructs. They are also always gendered and contested spaces. This volume, the last from the Gender in the European Town (GENETON) project, approaches life in the European town over time and across class and national boundaries. Through contextualized case studies, it provides scholars and students with new research—snapshots—of contemporary physical and built environments that explores how contemporary urban residents experienced and deployed gendered urban spaces over an important period of modernization.

This important collection of essays draws together exciting new historical research on gender in eighteenth-century England. The book examines the experiences of women and men in public and private life and challenges the generally accepted belief that the eighteenth century saw the establishment of sexually segregated separate spheres.

The Routledge History of Loneliness takes a multidisciplinary approach to the history of a modern emotion, exploring its form and development across cultures from the seventeenth century to the present.Bringing together thirty scholars from various disciplines, including history, anthropology, philosophy, literature and art history, the volume considers how loneliness was represented in art and literature, conceptualised by philosophers and writers and described by people in their personal narratives. It considers loneliness as a feeling so often defined in contrast to sociability and affective connections, particularly attending to loneliness in relation to the family, household and community. Acknowledging that loneliness is a relatively novel term in English, the book explores its precedents in ideas about solitude, melancholy and nostalgia, as well as how it might be considered in cross-cultural perspectives.With wide appeal to students and researchers in a variety of subjects, including the history of emotions, social sciences and literature, this volume brings a critical historical perspective to an emotion with contemporary significance.Chapter [#] of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

A new collection of essays which challenges many existing assumptions, particularly the conventional models of separate spheres and economic change. All the essays are specifically written for a student market, making detailed research accessible to a wide readership and the opening chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the subject describing the development of gender history as a whole and the study of eighteenth-century England. This is an exciting collection which is a major revision of the subject.