Female Suicide,Subjectivity and the State in Eighteenth‐Century China

This article examines the social and political significance of female suicide in Qing Dynasty China and its implications for women's agency, feminine subjectivity and the state's interpretation of violence. Tracing the development of state and elite interpretations of the propriety of women's suicides, it situates the discourse on female suicide in the context of state efforts to control the definition and enactment of moralised violence and pervasive rhetoric about women's incapacity for moral agency. Demonstrating the problematic ethical and judicial status of suicides committed in the wake of a violation of chastity, in particular, it argues that such suicides represented a distinctively female definition of moral order and the role of violence within it.     

Huguenot Belief and Practice in Eighteenth‐Century Paris

Protestantism was illegal in eighteenth‐century France, yet many French Reformed Protestants, better known as Huguenots, managed to maintain their religion and identity until the French Revolution granted religious freedom. Several thousand of them lived in Paris, but remained a tiny minority in a very Catholic city. Given this context, and little access to pastors or collective worship, what kind of Protestantism did they observe? This article suggests that, like other minority groups, their religious practice and thinking were influenced both by the Catholic environment in which they lived and by the culture of the late eighteenth‐century city. By 1789 they had moved away from certain Calvinist traditions, and some of them had adopted a surprising ecumenism.     

Gender,Sexuality and the Formation of Racial Identities in the Eighteenth‐Century Anglo‐Caribbean World

In recent years, scholars have directed considerable attention to the influence of gender relations and sexual practices on developing racial formations in early British America, the colonial Caribbean and the wider British empire. Understanding that unauthorised intimacies in the imperial world threatened notions of Britishness at home has greatly enhanced our knowledge of the complexity and instability of the process of collective identity formation. Building on pioneering research in early American and British imperial history, this article charts the connection between gendered concepts of ‘whiteness’ in Anglo‐Caribbean contexts and in metropolitan discourses surrounding British national identity, as articulated in eighteenth‐century colonial legislation and official correspondence, popular texts and personal narratives of everyday life. It explores the extent to which the socio‐sexual practices of British West Indian whites imperilled the emerging conflation between whiteness and Britishness.     

British Lobbying in Newspaper and Parliamentary Discourse, 1800–1950

Lobbying is a significant component of the modern politics industry in Britain, but we know relatively little about its historical origins and evolution. This article draws on parliamentary debates and three databases which together account for 51 newspaper titles, in order to explore how lobbying was discussed in parliament and the media between 1800 and 1950, and to gauge the growing professionalisation of lobbying. Perceptions of lobbying became somewhat less negative over the period; there are relatively few reports or allegations of corruption associated with lobbying; and lobbying by the railway industry seems to have been less substantial, while public sector lobbying was more significant, than is commonly supposed. Direct advocacy with policymakers is overwhelmingly the dominant tactic used by lobbyists of the period, with few reports of coalitions or grass‐roots campaigns. Particular concerns were expressed about the influence of lobbying around private bills. While lobbying back‐bench MPs and parliamentary committees (rather than ministers and civil servants) accounted for over 80% of the activity revealed across the whole period, there are signs by the middle of the 20th century that the focus of lobbyists is beginning to turn away from Westminster and towards Whitehall. The article paints a detailed view of the scale, scope, and significance of lobbying as it was developing into a national and systematic industry.     

Men Making Home: Masculinity and Domesticity in Eighteenth‐Century Britain

Eighteenth‐century England is, for many scholars, the time and place where modern domesticity was invented; the point at which ‘home’ became a key concept sustained by new literary imaginings and new social practices. But as gendered individuals, and certainly compared to women, men are notable for their absence in accounts of the eighteenth‐century domestic interior. In this essay, I examine the relationship between constructs of masculinity and meanings of home. During the eighteenth century, ‘home’ came to mean more than one's dwelling; it became a multi‐faceted state of being, encompassing the emotional, physical, moral and spatial. Masculinity intersected with domesticity at all levels and stages in its development. The nature of men's engagements with home were understood through a model of ‘oeconomy’, which brought together the home and the world, primarily through men's activities. Indeed, this essay proposes that attention to how this multi‐faceted eighteenth‐century ‘home’ was made in relation to masculinity shifts our understanding of home as a private and feminine space opposed to an ‘outside’ and public world.     

Women in the Formal and Informal Economies of Late Eighteenth‐Century Quebec, 1763–1830

This article challenges the conventional interpretation of the transition from French to British rule in Quebec, which has emphasised the increasing marginalisation of women in the colonial economy. Using hitherto unexplored criminal and civil court records and newspaper advertisements, reveals that women and in particular married women, both French and English speaking, were active in all facets of business life. Given the importance of imported British luxury items in the colonial economy following the American Revolution, this article argues that women occupied a particularly dynamic segment of business life in Quebec, and were especially prominent in the critical textile and fashion trades. A major theme of this article is to show the significance of informal trade networks in expanding economic development in the late eighteenth century, where women were demonstrably key players. The presence of women in both formal and formal economies goes far to locating Quebec in a burgeoning Atlantic economy, and to explaining the nature of consumer society in this new British colony.     

A Case of Murderous Sensibility: James Hackman,Interiority and Masculine Agency in Late Eighteenth‐Century England

After murdering Martha Ray in April 1779, James Hackman enjoyed an improbable media celebrity that rested largely on his ability both to embody and complicate the performative conventions of the late eighteenth‐century discourse of sensibility, which tied virtue to its embodied visibility. Supporters who lauded Hackman, but wanted to conserve his and their own moral agency, disentangled his character from his crime by attributing to him an interior space in which that character resided. Thus, while spectators delighted in the way that Hackman's sensible body registered his anguish at Ray's death, they could also paradoxically insist that his true intentions were hidden inside that suffering body, uncoupled from his violent deed. Such attributions of interiority helped to conserve both Hackman's masculinity and his agency by distinguishing his body from feminine bodies whose lack of such interior space rendered them vulnerable to a disordered and hysterical sensibility. The rhetorical energy devoted to defending Hackman provides a valuable case study of the ways that reconciliation was sought in the late eighteenth century between masculinity and agency within the discourse of sensibility and suggests that the differential, gendered distribution of interiority helped assuage fears about feeling's feminising potential.     

Eighteenth‐Century Meissen Porcelain Reference Data Obtained By Proton‐Beam Analysis (PIXE–PIGE)

Prior to their restoration, the porcelain bodies of broken pieces from 31 authentic Meissen objects of the early 18th century were investigated by proton‐beam analysis. Attention was paid so that the proton beam probed only the bare porcelain paste areas of fractures. Thus, contributions to the measured X‐ray and γ‐ray spectra from adjacent surface glaze were prevented. The chemical compositions, obtained by simultaneous detection of elements with Z ≥ 13 (X‐rays) and lighter elements Z ≤ 14 (γ‐rays), represent rather consistent mixtures of paste ingredients. This result highlights the durable recipes and raw materials used in early Meissen porcelain production in the years 1725–50. Mean concentration values of element oxides, deduced from the detailed measurements, prove suitable for use as a database for Meissen porcelain paste identification. Material authentication of intact objects, without access to the bare porcelain body, is demonstrated by inspection of the white glaze. Unique museum objects are examined in atmosphere and without sampling. A low proton‐beam intensity and a short irradiation time ensure non‐destructive analysis. Simultaneous radiation and backscattered particle detection allow complete composition analysis, using the established ion beam techniques of particle‐induced X‐ray emission (PIXE), particle‐induced gamma‐ray emission (PIGE) and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS).