E-Book, Englisch, Band 72, 326 Seiten
Broders The Age of Curiosity
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-11-072204-8
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark
The Neural Network of an Idea in Eighteenth-Century English Literature
E-Book, Englisch, Band 72, 326 Seiten
Reihe: Buchreihe der Anglia / Anglia Book SeriesISSN
ISBN: 978-3-11-072204-8
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark
Challenging the ‘success story’ of curiosity from original sin to intellectual virtue, this study uses an innovative methodological approach to the history of ideas as a non-teleological neural network based on current research in information technology and neurophysiology. The network offers a dynamic alternative to the ‘development’ of curiosity within the progress-oriented mythology of the Enlightenment, emphasizing the oscillation and interaction of ideas within the processes of their construction, as well as exposing the power relations behind them.
The text corpus focuses on enactments of curiosity in English literature of the 'Long' Eighteenth Century (c. 1680-1818), such as transgression of boundaries, breach of taboo, gendered curiosity, sensationalism, or academic endeavour, bringing together a variety of examples from all major genres.
contributes to current debates on a post-Foucauldian renewal of Lovejoy’s history of ideas in Enlightenment studies, exploring both curiosity as an indispensable trait for the search of answers to the fundamental yet unresolved questions of ‘identity’ or ‘truth’, and its potential as , the care for others and the world.
Zielgruppe
Scholars of Enlightenment Studies, Romanticism, English Studies,
