Curiosity

by Benedict, Barbara M.

• ISBN13: 9780226042633
• ISBN10: 0226042634
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-02-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

In this striking social history, Barbara M. Benedict draws on the texts of the early modern period to discover the era's attitudes toward curiosity, a trait we learn was often depicted as an unsavory form of transgression or cultural ambition.

Author Biography

Barbara M. Benedict is a professor and chair of English at Trinity College, Connecticut. She is the author of Making the Modern Reader and Framing Feeling.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction Inspecting and Spectating: Monsters, Rarities, and Investigators	1	(24)
Regulating Curiosity	25	(46)
The Discipline of Fraud	28	(24)
Curiosity as Second Sight	52	(19)
Consuming Curiosity	71	(47)
Monstrous Modernity and Curious Art	74	(18)
The Curious Eye	92	(26)
From the Curious to the Curio	118	(40)
The Inquiry of Eve	121	(13)
Women as Closeted Curiosities	134	(24)
Connoisseurship in the Mental Cabinet	158	(44)
Curiosities of Artful Nature	164	(16)
Collecting Culture in the Printed Museum	180	(22)
Performing Curiosity	202	(43)
The Curious Control of Nature	206	(22)
Curiosity as Social Reform	228	(17)
Conclusion Transgression and Ambition	245	(10)
Notes	255	(58)
Index	313