Character, Self, and Sociability in the Scottish Enlightenment

by Ahnert, Thomas; Manning, Susan

• ISBN13: 9780230104143
• ISBN10: 0230104142
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-11-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

The purpose of the book is to examine this broader significance of Enlightenment character for the first time, and to do so from an interdisciplinary perspective. The focus is on the Scottish Enlightenment, but contributors will consider these debates in relation to parallel developments in Britain, Europe, and America

Author Biography

Thomas Ahnert is a senior lecturer in History at the University of Edinburgh. Susan Manning is Grierson Professor of English Literature and Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh.

Table of Contents

Reid and Hume on the Possibility of Character—James A. Harris * Adam Smith’s Rhetorical Art of Character—Stephen McKenna * The Moral Education of Mankind: Character and Religious Moderatism in the Sermons of Hugh Blair—Thomas Ahnert * The Not-So-Prodigal Son: James Boswell and the Scottish Enlightenment—Anthony La Vopa * Character, Sociability and Correspondence: Elizabeth Griffith and The Letters between Henry and Frances—Eve Tavor Bannet * Smellie’s Dreams: Character and Consciousness in the Scottish Enlightenment—Phyllis Mack William * Aspects of Character and Sociability in Scottish Enlightenment Medicine—Neil Vickers * The ‘Peculiar Colouring of the Mind’: Character and Painted Portraiture in the Scottish Enlightenment—Viccy Coltman * National Characters and Race: A Scottish Enlightenment Debate—Silvia Sebastiani * Character and Cosmopolitanism in the Scottish-American Enlightenment—Hannah Spahn * Historical Characters: Biography, the Science of Man, and Romantic Fiction—Susan Manning * Necessity, Freedom, and Character Formation from the Eighteenth Century to the Nineteenth—Jerrold Seigel