Counterfeit States

2018 ◽  
pp. 49-78
Author(s):  
Sharada Balachandran Orihuela
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Charles Brockden Brown ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Paper Currency ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
National Citizenship

This chapter looks to overlapping discussions of American economic health and growth to present a complex story about the circulation of currency as well as the circulation of late-eighteenth century conceptions of American personhood in the works of Charles Brockden Brown and Stephen Burroughs. These imaginative accounts of counterfeiting dramatize the intimate bonds of normative conceptions of citizenship and national currency. This chapter shows how discourses of counterfeiting distinctly frame the social and political geographies of the early American republic. Moreover, the lack of uniform paper currency in the early Republic (which produces social, political, and economic instability) mimics the lack of a uniform understanding of national citizenship in this same period to such a degree that some late eighteenth century authors respond to this dual precarity by proposing that counterfeiting a uniquely American form of self-making, both because the counterfeiting enterprise gives rise to new, albeit economically unstable, homo economici, and because these new economic bodies are themselves forging and/or imitating the dress, behaviors, and codes of propriety in order to capitalize on counterfeit currency. Thus, counterfeiting alleviates some of the anxiety about the lack of uniform national citizenship.

scholarly journals The Social Structure of a Bedfordshire Parish in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

1973 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. L. Tranter
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Demographic Characteristics ◽  
Demographic Structure ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Materials Used ◽  
Source Materials

In an earlier article, I outlined some of the main social and demographic characteristics of the Bedfordshire parish of Cardington during the late eighteenth century, using for the purpose the invaluable survey of the parish compiled by a local schoolmaster, James Lilbourne, in 1782. Because of the growing interest in the historical process of social change, it has been thought worthwhile to examine the socio-demographic structure of Cardington at a later period. The date chosen for this second snap-shot was 1851 and the source materials used are the enumerators' schedules of the parish which were prepared for the census of that year. Although the listings for 1782 and 1851 differ somewhat, both in the nature of their content and in the degree of their coverage of the local population, a crude comparison between them has proved to be possible.

Hamann, Johann Georg (1730–88)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Beiser
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Friedrich Schlegel ◽  
Sturm Und Drang ◽  
German Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Mind

Hamann was one of the most important critics of the German Enlightenment or Aufklärung. He attacked the Aufklärung chiefly because it gave reason undue authority over faith. It misunderstood faith, which consists in an immediate personal experience, inaccessible to reason. The main fallacy of the Aufklärung was hypostasis, the reification of ideas, the artificial abstraction of reason from its social and historical context. Hamann stressed the social and historical dimension of reason, that it must be embodied in society, history and language. He also emphasized the pivotal role of language in the development of reason. The instrument and criterion of reason was language, whose only sanction was tradition and use. Hamann was a sharp critic of Kant, whose philosophy exemplified all the sins of the Aufklärung. Hamann attacked the critical philosophy for its purification of reason from experience, language and tradition. He also strongly objected to all its dualisms, which seemed arbitrary and artificial. The task of philosophy was to unify all the various functions of the mind, seeing reason, will and feeling as an indivisible whole. Although he was original and unorthodox, Hamann’s critique of reason should be placed within the tradition of Protestant nominalism. Hamann saw himself as a defender of Luther, whose reputation was on the wane in late eighteenth-century Germany. Hamann was also a founder of the Sturm und Drang, the late eighteenth-century literary movement which celebrated personal freedom and revolt. His aesthetics defended creative genius and the metaphysical powers of art. It marked a sharp break with the rationalism of the classical tradition and the empiricism of late eighteenth-century aesthetics. Hamann was a seminal influence upon Herder, Goethe, Jacobi, Friedrich Schlegel and Kierkegaard.

Passing as a Pastor: Clerical Imposture in the Colonial Atlantic World

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American ◽  
True Value ◽  
Cultural Power

AbstractMany impostors in the eighteenth century tried to pass as pastors in North America's churches. This phenomenon showed how increasing engagement with the broader Atlantic world could carry ominous implications for colonial religious leaders, implications that would become manifest in the itinerancy of the evangelical revivals and, in the early republic, finally crush any hopes of centered American religious authority. Eighteenth-century episodes of clerical imposture help illuminate the increasing loss of cultural mastery faced by religious elites as a result of Atlantic anonymities, itinerant ministries, and democratic sensibilities. This article considers why so many in the eighteenth century attempted to pass as pastors, from British wanderers like the supposed brick-maker Samuel May to notorious criminals like Tom Bell or Stephen Burroughs. Understanding the conditions that led to these cases of clerical imposture leads to greater understanding of the nature of religious and cultural power in colonial North America and in the early American republic. The eighteenth century brought a crisis to America concerning the implications of cultural and demographic fluidity as elites worried more and more about assigning true value and uncovering conspiracy in a world newly dependent on appearances to establish authority. The increasing cosmopolitanism, immigration, and commerce helped make the colonial elites more wealthy and powerful, but they also now had to scramble to resist the potential for deception and imposture that the new engagements created. Such conditions made new room for con men, many of whom posed as pastors to access the power of religious authorities.

scholarly journals Otherness and Self in Latvian Theatre: Changes at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 120
Author(s):  
Pauls Daija
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Hill

In the article, political and historical interpretations of the first play in Latvian, an adapted translation of Ludvig Holberg’s Jeppe of the Hill (1723, Latvian version 1790) are explored. Although the play has been often interpreted as a work of anti-alcohol propaganda, the article argues that the political motives of the play are no less important. Translated into Latvian during the time of the French revolution, the play mirrors the tense atmosphere of the revolutionary years and reflects changes in Latvian peasant identity. While translating, Baltic German pastor Alexander Johann Stender changed the play’s setting to the late eighteenth century Courland and added new details, emphasizing the social conflict of the play as an ethnic one. It has been argued in the article that since ‘class’ in the Baltics was divided along national lines, the difference between peasants and masters was also the difference between Latvians and Germans, so class and ethnicity merged. When the peasant and the nobleman switch places in the play, this symbolizes a change in the Latvian-German colonial relationship. The colonial interpretation allows for a characterisation of the protagonist as a desperate imitator – a colonial subject who loses his identity as a serf and is not able to form a new identity in any way other than by copying the colonialist op- pressor. But this mimicry turns into ridicule, hence the play acquires a political meaning as it implicitly shows the disastrous consequences of revolutionary pro- test. Therefore, the play can be read as a part of the discussions about the Baltic Enlightenment emancipation project and as a hidden debate on serfdom and the colonial framework of the Courland society

scholarly journals A paisagem e sua dimensão estética [The aesthetic dimension of landscape]

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (45) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esdras Araujo Arraes
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Georg Simmel ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Elective Affinities ◽  
The Aesthetic

Os estudos que se dedicam à paisagem a compreendem como a materialização de relações entre o homem e o território. Por outro lado, a noção de paisagem abriga, desde sua origem, uma conotação estética, pensada como discurso valorativo da natureza. Assim, o objetivo desse artigo é mostrar a paisagem como categoria do pensamento e parte do campo reflexivo da disciplina Estética. Serão mencionados escritos de determinados filósofos empenhados em interpretar a paisagem em sua dimensão estética. Dentre eles, pode-se citar Georg Simmel, Augustin Berque e Arnold Berleant. Busca-se ampliar sua noção para além das transformações sociais do espaço, celebrando as maneiras sensíveis de apreensão da natureza. Pretende-se, ainda, compreender a noção de paisagem formulada no Renascimento e, especialmente, no final do século XVIII, pondo luz em algumas obras literárias de Goethe, tais como Os sofrimentos do jovem Werther e Escritos sobre arte.[The studies that are dedicated to the landscape understand it as the materialization of relations between man and territory. On the other hand, the notion of landscape has, since its origin, an aesthetic connotation, thought of as a valorative discourse of nature. Thus, the purpose of this article is to show the landscape as a category of thought and part of the reflective field of the Aesthetic discipline. It will be mentioned writings of certain philosophers committed to interpret the landscape in its aesthetic dimension. I will mention, for instance, the research of Georg Simmel, Augustin Berque and Arnold Berleant. It seeks to broaden its notion beyond the social transformations of space, celebrating the sensitive manners of apprehending nature. It is also intended to understand the notion of landscape formulated in Renaissance and especially in the late Eighteenth Century putting light on some of Goethe's literary works, such as The sorrows of young Werther and Elective affinities.]

Science in Nineteenth-Century England: Plural Configurations and Singular Politics

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Pickstone
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Professional Schools ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Victorian Science

This chapter discusses the sciences and their politics in the nineteenth-century. It characterises Victorian science, technology and medicine, and states how they relate to state institutions and to scientific professions. It begins by suggesting a model for the configurations of natural knowledge in the late eighteenth century. It then deals with sciences and institutions, suggesting that these disciplines owed much to French museums and professional schools, and to German universities. It also considers three generations of scientist: first, the Anglican gentlemen of the British Association of the Advancement of Science (BAAS) in the 1830s; secondly, T. H. Huxley and his associates from the 1850s; and thirdly, a few professors who developed research laboratories from the 1870s. It asks what they understood about the meanings of science as a claimed unity and how they relate to the social and political projects variously characteristic of each generation.

Catholicism, Apostasy and Politics in Late Eighteenth-Century England: The Case of Sir Thomas Gascoigne and Charles Howard, Earl of Surrey

2010 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-298
Author(s):  
Alexander Lock
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Old English ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Careers ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Scale ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth

Apostasy among the English Catholic gentry in the late eighteenth century was not uncommon. In this period contemporary Catholic observers were concerned by what they perceived to be a great qualitative decrease of English Catholic gentry and they regarded apostasy as ‘a major and catastrophic cause of the decline’. Conformity to the established religion was a social virtue and was rewarded with social advantages; it was part and parcel of one's rise in the social scale and so was a great temptation for gentlemen outside the Anglican fold who were desirous of a service or parliamentary career. In almost every county in England many heads of old English Catholic families conformed. Indeed, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, of the twenty-four Catholic gentry families that existed in the Riding in. 1706 only twelve remained by 1780. Between the years 1754–1790 seven members of the House of Commons had renounced Roman Catholicism in order to pursue political careers and according to the contemporary Catholic priest Joseph Berington, by 1780 there were but 177 landed Catholic families in England ten of which had either died out or recently abjured their faith. Just a few conversions could have devastating consequences for Catholic communities. As David Butler points out, often ‘Catholic missions were over-dependent on the Catholic aristocracy and gentry for the continuance of Catholic worship’ and for Butler, in eighteenth-century London alone, if ‘just eight prominent families had apostatised … the Catholic missions would have lost about half of their numbers’.

Brown and the Yellow Fever

2019 ◽  
pp. 383-398
Author(s):  
Scott Ellis
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Yellow Fever ◽  
Charles Brockden Brown ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Robert Morris ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
At Home

This chapter explores the potential causes of and responses to the yellow fever outbreaks in Philadelphia and New York during the late eighteenth century. Disrupting routines, halting commerce, and endangering the health and welfare of residents of these areas, the outbreaks also play a central role in the writings of Charles Brockden Brown, who used them to frame some of his novels and tales and to position his characters in moments of crisis. Moreover, this chapter connects the dilemma in the “Man at Home” series to the founding father and debtor Robert Morris, and through this connection we see how Brown positions debt alongside yellow fever as social crises that his characters must navigate. By exploring how Brown used yellow fever in his writing and how scholars have interpreted this use, this chapter explains the multifaceted roles that the disease had on Brown and our understanding of his work.

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