见贤思齐、臻于至善:18世纪法国社会中富含美德的竞争观念

émulation乃是18世纪法国精英经常谈及的概念,在启蒙时代的文化与社会生活中扮演了颇为重要的角色。该词具有竞争之含义,但它所指的不是对于利益、权力与财富的争夺,而是在美德、优点和荣誉方面追赶甚至超越他人。18世纪后期,此概念在保有其追求美德与优长之意蕴的同时,逐渐深化了参与竞争,获取成功的内涵。这一趋向与当时法国教育、艺术领域以及各省学院中盛行以竞赛、展览和征文等形式鼓励竞争意识的现象相一致。启蒙时代的某些法国精英力图将本质上体现了贵族精神的竞争意识转变为一种民族精神,从而实现社会改良之目的。他们希冀通过倡导竞争观念重塑法国人的道德风尚与精神面貌,并且推动农业和商业的发展。     

Language,Science and Globalization in the Eighteenth Century**

Asia, America, and Europe have been intellectually intertwined for centuries. Several studies have been published revealing European scholars’ interest in the “exotic” languages of Asia and America, as well as in ethnographic and anthropological aspects. Some scholars such as Polymath Leibniz (1646–1716), were interested in these languages in an attempt to construct a universal language, while others tried to establish language families, like the Jesuit Hervás y Panduro (1735–1809). However, all acknowledge the importance of language and the circulation of knowledge. This paper analyzes the dissemination of the compilation of eighteenth-century multilingual lexical compilations for comparative purposes as an early globalized project. These compilations were designed by European scholars and subsequently elaborated in different languages by missionaries, explorers, and scientists in the Philippines and America. Taking the correspondence and relations between botanist Mutis (1732–1808) and bureaucrats, European scientists such as polymath Humboldt (1769–1859) and Botanist Linnaeus (1707–1778) among others, and navy officers of the scientific exploration commanded by Malaspina (1754–1809) and Bustamante y Guerra (1759–1825) into consideration, I will analyze how simultaneous projects followed a unified aim, and illustrate their substantial contribution to the study of language in the late eighteenth century.     

Music and the Aesthetic Copernican Revolution of the Eighteenth Century

ABSTRACT

In the mid-eighteenth century music underwent a sudden and drastic revolution when composers “discovered” a new dimension to their art. This had immense repercussions on the philosophy of art, for the music created before and after this divide represents two different species of aesthetic experience, which in due course affected our understanding of the meaning and import of the other arts as well. Despite the immense aesthetic repercussions of this Copernican revolution in music, philosophers of art seem not to have taken much notice of it. This essay details the emergence of the relevant musical criteria during the eighteenth century and dwells on their long-term impacts on the philosophy of art.     

Lost and Found: the Woman Writer in the Eighteenth Century

Jennifer Summit, Lost Property: the Woman Writer and English Literary History, 1380–1589 Jane Spencer, Aphra Behn's Afterlife Harriet Guest, Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, 1750’1810 Elizabeth Eger, Charlotte Grant, Cliona O Gallchoir and Penny Warburton (eds), Women, Writing and the Public Sphere, 1700’1830     

Introduction and Historical Context to the Archaeology of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Almshouses

This introduction discusses both the western cultural context of, and research issues behind, the following three articles on institutions founded to house the poor in Holland, England, and their American colonies. It also discusses the connections between this volume on colonial-era institutions for the poor and the previous volume on nineteenth century asylums and prisons.