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The Age of Curiosity : The Neural Network of an Idea in Eighteenth-Century English Literature / Simone Broders.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Buchreihe der Anglia / Anglia Book Series ; 72Publisher: Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter, [2021]Copyright date: ©2021Description: 1 online resource (X, 316 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9783110721911
  • 9783110722208
  • 9783110722048
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 820.9/353 23
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Scribal Abbreviations -- Tables and Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Preface: Networking the Age of Curiosity: Unmasking the Myth -- 1 Original Sin or Secret of Happiness? An Introduction to Curiosity -- 2 “The Thinking Animal”: Lovejoy’s History of Ideas -- 3 Methodology of the Study -- 4 Curiosity: Origins of the Debate -- 5 Curiosity Across Different Media -- 6 Agents of Curiosity and the ‘New Science’ -- 7 Secret Chambers, Hidden Chests, and the Mysterious Self: Objects of Curiosity in Romanticism -- 8 Conclusion: Legitimacy of Curiosity in the Eighteenth Century and Beyond -- Works Cited -- Dictionaries, Thesauri -- Index
Summary: 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. The Age of Curiosity 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 cura, the care for others and the world.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Scribal Abbreviations -- Tables and Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Preface: Networking the Age of Curiosity: Unmasking the Myth -- 1 Original Sin or Secret of Happiness? An Introduction to Curiosity -- 2 “The Thinking Animal”: Lovejoy’s History of Ideas -- 3 Methodology of the Study -- 4 Curiosity: Origins of the Debate -- 5 Curiosity Across Different Media -- 6 Agents of Curiosity and the ‘New Science’ -- 7 Secret Chambers, Hidden Chests, and the Mysterious Self: Objects of Curiosity in Romanticism -- 8 Conclusion: Legitimacy of Curiosity in the Eighteenth Century and Beyond -- Works Cited -- Dictionaries, Thesauri -- Index

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http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

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. The Age of Curiosity 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 cura, the care for others and the world.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 25. Jun 2024)