Overview

Mind, Body, Motion, Matter investigates the relationship between the eighteenth century's two predominant approaches to the natural world - mechanistic materialism and vitalism - in the works of leading British and French writers such as Daniel Defoe, William Hogarth, Laurence Sterne, the third Earl of Shaftesbury and Denis Diderot. Focusing on embodied experience and the materialization of thought in poetry, novels, art, and religion, the literary scholars in this collection offer new and intriguing readings of these canonical authors. Informed by contemporary currents such as new materialism, cognitive studies, media theory, and post-secularism, their essays demonstrate the volatility of the core ideas opened up by materialism and the possibilities of an aesthetic vitalism of form.

Full Product Details

Author:   Mary Helen McMurran ,  Alison Conway
Publisher:   University of Toronto Press
Imprint:   University of Toronto Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.600kg
ISBN:  

9781442650114

ISBN 10:   1442650117
Pages:   304
Publication Date:   14 March 2016
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable  
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.

Table of Contents

Introduction Mary Helen McMurran Part One: Pre-Reflective Experience 1 Hogarth’s Practical Aesthetics Ruth Mack 2 Presence of Mind: An Ecology of Perception in Eighteenth-Century England Jonathan Kramnick 3 Reading Locke After Shaftesbury: Feeling Our Way Towards a Postsecular Genealogy of Religious Tolerance David Alvarez 4 Rethinking Superstition: Pagan Ritual in Lafitau’s Moeurs des sauvages Mary Helen McMurran Part Two: Materialisms 5 Defoe on Spiritual Communication, Action at a Distance, and the Mind in Motion Sara Landreth 6 The Persistence of Clarissa Sarah Ellenzweig 7 The Early-Modern Embodied Mind and the Entomology Imaginary Kate E. Tunstall 8 Diderot’s Brain Joanna Stalnaker Conclusion: Can Aesthetics Overcome Instrumental Reason? The Need for Judgment in Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees Vivasvan Soni

Reviews

"‘This commendable volume will be of interest to scholars active in eighteenth-century studies as well as those whose work borders on this field.’ -- Matthew Rowney * <em>Eighteenth Century Fiction</em> * ‘Mary Helen McMurran and Alison Conway have edited a great collection of essays on the topic of eighteenth-century science. Mind, Body, Motion, Matter offers an amazing range of topics and concerns.’ -- George E. Haggerty * <em>Studies in English Literature</em> * ""The stimulating articles in this volume present new approaches to some complicated concepts concerning materialism in the eighteenth century, concepts that have been considered and debated before, but not in this impressive, challenging, and, at times, provocative manner…The articles, which are of a uniformly high quality, will appeal to a broad spectrum of interests, aesthetic, literary, philosophical, French, and English."" -- Hugh Reid, Carleton University * <em>University of Toronto Quarterly</em> *"

'This commendable volume will be of interest to scholars active in eighteenth-century studies as well as those whose work borders on this field.' -- Matthew Rowney Eighteenth Century Fiction vol 29:03:2017

Author Information

Mary Helen McMurran is an associate professor in the Department of English and Writing Studies at the University of Western Ontario. Alison Conway is Professor of English and Cultural Studies, and of Gender and Women's Studies, at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions