Roxann Wheeler - Böcker

In the 1723 Journal of a Voyage up the Gambia, an English narrator describes the native translators vital to the expedition's success as being "Black as Coal." Such a description of dark skin color was not unusual for eighteenth-century Britons-but neither was the statement that followed: "here, thro' Custom, (being Christians) they account themselves White Men." The Complexion of Race asks how such categories would have been possible, when and how such statements came to seem illogical, and how our understanding of the eighteenth century has been distorted by the imposition of nineteenth and twentieth century notions of race on an earlier period. Wheeler traces the emergence of skin color as a predominant marker of identity in British thought and juxtaposes the Enlightenment's scientific speculation on the biology of race with accounts in travel literature, fiction, and other documents that remain grounded in different models of human variety.As a consequence of a burgeoning empire in the second half of the eighteenth century, English writers were increasingly preoccupied with differentiating the British nation from its imperial outposts by naming traits that set off the rulers from the ruled; although race was one of these traits, it was by no means the distinguishing one. In the fiction of the time, non-European characters could still be "redeemed" by baptism or conversion and the British nation could embrace its mixed-race progeny. In Wheeler's eighteenth century we see the coexistence of two systems of racialization and to detect a moment when an older order, based on the division between Christian and heathen, gives way to a new one based on the assertion of difference between black and white.

The first section of this volume consists of a panel, "Transnational Quixotes and Quixotisms," introduced by Catherine Jaffe. It includes essays by Amelia Dale on how female quixotes differed from male quixotes in eighteenth-century England; by Elena Deanda on the Marquis de Sade as a quixotic figure; by Elizabeth Franklin Lewis on English travelers' uses of Spanish cartography; and by Aaron R. Hanlon on quixotism as a global heuristic, with reference to the Pacific as well as the Atlantic. The second panel in the volume, "The Habsburgs and the Enlightenment," is introduced by Rebecca Messbarger. It includes essays by Rita Krueger on conflicts between Maria Theresa's view of the Enlightenment and that of her reigning children; by Julia Doe on Marie Antoinette's promotion of a new nontraditional kind of opera at the French court; by R. S. Agin on questions of judicial torture in Austrian Lombardy; and by Heather Morrison on Habsburg efforts to compete with other empires in botany as well as diplomacy. The third section consists of individual essays: Michael B.Guenter on Britain's subordination of science to imperial goals in the new world; Richard Frohock on the critique of British imperialism in John Gay's Polly; Jeffrey Merrick on the French Revolution's failure to materially alter the legal status of sodomy and suicide; Adam Potkay, comparing Rousseau and Adam Smith's views of pity and gratitude; Jeff Loveland, on the methods used by Diderot to edit the Encyclopedie; and Tamar Mayer, on Jacques-Louis David's use of mirror reversibility in the composition of his painting, "Oath of the Horatii."

Addressing the diverse ways in which eighteenth-century contemporaries of different nations and cultures created visual, verbal, and material representations in various media.Focused on conventions of technology, labor, and tolerance on the one hand, and on artistic intentionality on the other hand, these essays also address the implications of this past in our own research today. The first section, “Representing Humans and Technology,” opens with the late Srinivas Aravamudan’s presidential address, “From Enlightenment to Anthropocene.” This is followed by a panel of essays on labor and industry, which includes Valentina Tikoff on the overlap between welfare and the technical training of Spanish orphans for warfare; Susan Egenolf on mythological representations of industry; Susan Libby on the Encyclopédie’s mechanical representations of sugar production on the plantations; and Jon Klancher on technological manuals. The second section, “Inside the Artist’s Studio,” opens with Shearer West’s ASECS/BSECS lecture on “selfiehood” and eighteenth-century celebrity. This is followed by papers on self-promoting self-representations—by painters in Wendy Wassyng Roworth’s essay on Angelica Kauffman’s studio in Rome and Francesca Bove’s essay on George Morland’s studio; and by a self-promoting French society lady in Heather McPherson’s essay on Madame Récamier’s portraits. This section concludes with Leith Davis’s essay on representations in the contemporary press of Ireland and the Glorious Revolution. The final section addresses emerging issues in two forums. The first reconsiders issues of intentionality: participants include Stephanie Insley Hershinow, Sarah Ellenzweig, Edmund J. Goehring, Thomas Salem Manganaro, and Kathleen Lubey. The second section reconsiders issues of tolerance—and the association of Enlightenment tolerance with Voltaire during the recent Charlie Hebdo rallies in Paris. Participants include Jeffrey M. Leichman, Reginald McGinnis, Jack Iverson, Fayçal Falaky, Ourida Mostefai, and Elena Russo.

A fascinating look at communication in the eighteenth century.This volume addresses questions of communication in several media, from the oral, printed, and visual to the physical. It encompasses essays featuring France, Germany, Early America, Scotland, and Britain more generally.The first section, "Manuscript Communications," opens with Dena Goodman's presidential address on the secret history of learned societies. It is followed by a panel on manuscript and print circulation introduced by Colin Ramsey, which includes essays by Ryan Whyte, Chiara Cillerai, and Jürgen Overhoff. This section concludes with an essay by Carla J. Mulford on Benjamin Franklin's electrification of London politics.The second section, "Arts and Manufactures," opens with David Shields's Clifford Lecture on the flavors of the eighteenth century. It contains essays by Hanna Roman on Buffon's language of heat and Jason Pearl on the perspective of aerostatic bodies and concludes with essays by Matthew Mauger and Michael C. Amrozowicz on the languages of physical disciplines and social organization.The final section, "Devotion and Other Passions," begins with essays on silence and spectacle as means of convening the passions, by Adam Schoene and Anne Vila respectively, and it concludes with a forum introduced by Laura M. Stevens on Enlightenment representations of devotion. This section includes presentations by Clare Haynes, Penny Pritchard, Jennifer L. Airey, Sabine Volk-Birke, Megan E. Gibson, Laura Davies, and Theresa Schoen and an afterword by Emma Salgard Cunha.