Julia V. Douthwaite - Böcker

This study looks at the lives of the most famous "wild children" of eighteenth-century Europe, showing how they open a window onto European ideas about the potential and perfectibility of mankind. Julia V. Douthwaite recounts reports of feral children, such as the wild girl of Champagne (captured in 1731 and baptized as Marie-Angelique Leblanc), and offers a fascinating glimpse into beliefs about the difference between man and beast, and the means once used to civilize the uncivilized. A variety of educational experiments failed to tame these feral children by the standards of the day. After telling their stories, Douthwaite turns to literature that reflects upon similar experiments to perfect human subjects. Her examples range from utopian schemes for progressive childrearing to philosophical tales of animated statues, from revolutionary theories of regenerated men to Gothic tales of scientists run amok.Encompassing thinkers such as Rousseau, Sade, Defoe, and Mary Shelley as well as many lesser-known diarists, journalists, scientists, and novelists, Douthwaite shows how the Enlightenment conceived of mankind as an infinitely malleable entity, first with optimism, then with growing apprehension. Exposing the darker side of eighteenth-century thought, she demonstrates how advances in science gave rise to troubling new ethical concerns, as parents joined scientists and politicians in trying to perfect mankind - with disastrous results.

Rousseau and Dignity: Art Serving Humanity is a richly illustrated volume relating a series of events—a photography exhibit, lectures, commentary, and audience reactions by people ages seven to ninety-two—held in the name of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's tercentennial in 2012. Drawn together by the unexpected convergence of a lecture series and art exhibit held in South Bend, Indiana, and a documentary film that was shot simultaneously in Compiègne, France, the participants had several goals: to show why Rousseau's moral philosophy is important for our time; to argue for the importance of subjective art forms such as photography, video letters, and autobiography; to reproduce the stunning photojournalism commissioned by Amnesty International to document and dignify people who suffer human rights abuses, such as substandard housing, nationless-ness, and ethnic prejudice; and to inspire new kinds of intergenerational teaching. The book includes essays from world-renowned scholars on Jean-Jacques Rousseau; five chapters by photojournalists, which include fifty-four photographs from Egypt, India, Macedonia, Mexico, and Nigeria; and notes by youthful visitors to the exhibit. In the volume's unorthodox combination of art and text, creation and reflection, the authors hope to elicit readers' interest in, and commitment to, an engaged form of public humanities.

Judging by most contemporary accounts, the virtues of cross-disciplinary research, teaching and scholarship are above reproach. Conference organisers announce with pride that ‘l’interdisciplinarité a porté ses fruits’; governments and universities sponsor ever-growing numbers of interdisciplinary research teams. Such activity is especially pertinent to eighteenth-century studies. The Republic of Letters inspired scholars, scientists, artists, and writers to engage in spirited, multilingual and long-term correspondence with colleagues throughout Europe. As many contributors to this timely and provocative volume argue, a certain kind of interdisciplinarity is required for any consideration of eighteenth-century topics.But what impact has this enthusiasm for interdisciplinarity had on our understanding of objects, monuments, texts, and events of the past? Born of an intense series of debates, this volume takes on current controversies with unflinching honesty. Contributors address questions of theory and practice. Does interdisciplinary investigation carry any meaningful challenge to the disciplines themselves, or are we merely trading one kind of evidence for another? What institutional constraints work against such research and teaching? Is interdisciplinarity a pressing preoccupation of scholars in France and the UK, as it is in the US?The introduction provides a critical history of interdisciplinarity and outlines the key tensions of university life as experienced by students and scholars in the US, the UK and France. Position papers provide state-of-the-field analyses – some invigorating or even utopian, others darkly brooding. Case studies present examples of contemporary work, showing what might happen when a literary scholar confronts a pornographer’s battles, when an art historian takes on an ‘undisciplined’ object‚ or, perhaps most intriguing, when a practising attorney evaluates ‘legal’ approaches to literature.

Julia V. Douthwaite describes the interrelated representations of cultural and sexual difference in key French works of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The heroines of this book are foreign women, brought to France through no will of their own, and forced into the margins of a new society.The author contends that their experience resonates with larger cultural beliefs about exotic and primitive peoples in ancien rÉgime France and illuminates some of the blind spots in Enlightenment thought.