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Kristin M. Girten tells a new story of feminist knowledge-making in
the Enlightenment era by exploring the British female philosophers
who asserted their authority through the celebration of profoundly
embodied observations, experiences, and experiments. This book
explores the feminist materialist practice of sensitive witnessing,
establishing an alternate history of the emergence of the
scientific method in the eighteenth century. Francis Bacon and
other male natural philosophers regularly downplayed the embodied
nature of their observations. They presented themselves as modest
witnesses, detached from their environment and entitled to the
domination and exploitation of it. In contrast, the
philosopher-authors that Girten takes up asserted themselves as
intimately entangled with matter—boldly embracing their perceived
close association with the material world as women. Girten shows
how Lucy Hutchison, Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood,
and Charlotte Smith took inspiration from materialist principles to
challenge widely accepted "modest" conventions for practicing and
communicating philosophy. Forerunners of the feminist materialism
of today, these thinkers recognized the kinship of human and
nonhuman nature and suggested a more accessible, inclusive version
of science. Girten persuasively argues that our understanding of
Enlightenment thought must take into account these sensitive
witnesses' visions of an alternative scientific method informed by
profound closeness with the natural world.
Enlightenment-era writers had not yet come to take technology for
granted, but nonetheless were—as we are today—both attracted to
and repelled by its potential. This volume registers the deep
history of such ambivalence, examining technology’s influence on
Enlightenment British literature, as well as the impact of
literature on conceptions of, attitudes toward, and implementations
of technology. Offering a counterbalance to the abundance of
studies on literature and science in seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century Britain, this volume’s focus encompasses
approaches to literary history that help us understand technologies
like the steam engine and the telegraph along with representations
of technology in literature such as the “political machine.”
Contributors ultimately show how literature across genres provided
important sites for Enlightenment readers to recognize themselves
as “chimeras”—“hybrids of machine and organism”—and to
explore the modern self as “a creature of social reality as well
as a creature of fiction.”
Enlightenment-era writers had not yet come to take technology for
granted, but nonetheless were—as we are today—both attracted to
and repelled by its potential. This volume registers the deep
history of such ambivalence, examining technology’s influence on
Enlightenment British literature, as well as the impact of
literature on conceptions of, attitudes toward, and implementations
of technology. Offering a counterbalance to the abundance of
studies on literature and science in seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century Britain, this volume’s focus encompasses
approaches to literary history that help us understand technologies
like the steam engine and the telegraph along with representations
of technology in literature such as the “political machine.”
Contributors ultimately show how literature across genres provided
important sites for Enlightenment readers to recognize themselves
as “chimeras”—“hybrids of machine and organism”—and to
explore the modern self as “a creature of social reality as well
as a creature of fiction.”
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