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Victorian Fetishism argues that fetishism was central to the development of cultural theory in the nineteenth century. From 1850 to 1900, when theories of social evolution reached their peak, European intellectuals identified all \"primitive\" cultures with \"Primitive Fetishism,\" a psychological form of self-projection in which people believe everything in the external world—thunderstorms, trees, stones—is alive. Placing themselves at the opposite extreme of cultural evolution, the Victorians defined culture not by describing what culture was but by describing what it was not, and what it was not was fetishism. In analyses of major works by Matthew Arnold, George Eliot, and Edward B. Tylor, Peter Melville Logan demonstrates the paradoxical role of fetishism in Victorian cultural theory, namely, how Victorian writers projected their own assumptions about fetishism onto the realm of historical fact, thereby \"fetishizing\" fetishism. The book concludes by examining how fetishism became a sexual perversion as well as its place within current cultural theory.

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Germans exhibited a widespread cultural passion for tales and representations of Native Americans. This book explores the evolution of German national identity and its relationship with the ideas and cultural practices around \"Indianthusiasm.\" Pervasive and adaptable, imagery of Native Americans was appropriated by Nazi propaganda and merged with exceptionalist notions of German tribalism, oxymoronically promoting the Nazis' racial ideology. This book combines cultural and intellectual history to scrutinize the motifs of Native American imagery in German literature, media, and scholarship, and analyzes how these motifs facilitated the propaganda effort to nurture national pride, racial thought, militarism, and hatred against the Allied powers among the German populace.

Building Modern Turkeyoffers a critical account of how the built environment mediated Turkey's transition from a pluralistic (multiethnic and multireligious) empire into a modern, homogenized nation-state following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. Zeynep Kezer argues that the deliberate dismantling of ethnic and religious enclaves and the spatial practices that ensued were as integral to conjuring up a sense of national unity and facilitating the operations of a modern nation-state as were the creation of a new capital, Ankara, and other sites and services that embodied a new modern way of life. The book breaks new ground by examining both the creative and destructive forces at play in the making of modern Turkey and by addressing the overwhelming frictions during this profound transformation and their long-term consequences. By considering spatial transformations at different scales-from the experience of the individual self in space to that of international geopolitical disputes-Kezer also illuminates the concrete and performative dimensions of fortifying a political ideology, one that instills in the population a sense of membership in and allegiance to the nation above all competing loyalties and ensures its longevity.

This book explores the development of modern transatlantic prosthetic industries in nineteenth and twentieth centuries and reveals how the co-alignment of medicine, industrial capitalism, and social norms shaped diverse lived experiences of prosthetic technologies and in turn, disability identities. Through case studies that focus on hearing aids, artificial tympanums, amplified telephones, artificial limbs, wigs and dentures, this book provides a new account of the historic relationship between prostheses, disability and industry. Essays draw on neglected source material, including patent records, trade literature and artefacts, to uncover the historic processes of commodification surrounding different prostheses and the involvement of neglected companies, philanthropists, medical practitioners, veterans, businessmen, wives, mothers and others in these processes.

The French Revolution swept away the Old Regime along with many of its ideas about epistemology, history, society, and politics. In the intellectual ferment that followed, debates about religion figured prominently as diverse thinkers grappled with the philosophical and civil status of religion in a post-revolutionary age. Arthur McCalla demonstrates the central place of religion in the intellectual life of post-revolutionary France in Religion and the Post-revolutionary Mind . Certain questions - What is the nature of religion? Does society rest on religious foundations? What ought to be the place of religion in society? - drew sustained attention from across the political spectrum. Idéologues viewed religion as error and sought to eradicate it through the promotion of secular values. Catholic Traditionalists understood religion as a body of revealed truths of supernatural origin that ought to be authoritative in all aspects of life. Liberals sought to replace Christian orthodoxy with a new public faith consonant with liberal values. But these blocs were not monolithic, and McCalla reveals the complexities of each one, as well as the dialogues and rivalries among them. The categories established by the concepts of religion these thinkers constructed continue to shape debates over liberationist critiques, liberal pluralism, laïcité , and political theology. The place of religion in civil society is again a matter of urgent debate. Religion and the Post-revolutionary Mind provides essential historical context for thinking about the status of religion in the contemporary world.

In 1847, during the great age of the freak show, the British periodical Punch bemoaned the public's “prevailing taste for deformity.” This vividly detailed work argues that far from being purely exploitative, displays of anomalous bodies served a deeper social purpose as they generated popular and scientific debates over the meanings attached to bodily difference. Nadja Durbach examines freaks both well-known and obscure including the Elephant Man; “Lalloo, the Double-Bodied Hindoo Boy,” a set of conjoined twins advertised as half male, half female; Krao, a seven-year-old hairy Laotian girl who was marketed as Darwin's “missing link”; the ”Last of the Mysterious Aztecs” and African “Cannibal Kings,” who were often merely Irishmen in blackface. Upending our tendency to read late twentieth-century conceptions of disability onto the bodies of freak show performers, Durbach shows that these spectacles helped to articulate the cultural meanings invested in otherness--and thus clarified what it meant to be British—at a key moment in the making of modern and imperial ideologies and identities.

This book examines the relationship between antislavery texts and emerging representations of 'free labour' in mid-nineteenth-century America.

Now in paperback, Forming Humanity reveals bildung, or ethical formation, as the key to post-Kantian thought. Kant's proclamation of humankind's emergence from \"self-incurred immaturity\" left his contemporaries with a puzzle: What models should we use to sculpt ourselves if we no longer look to divine grace or received authorities? Deftly uncovering the roots of this question in Rhineland mysticism, Pietist introspection, and the rise of the bildungsroman, Jennifer A. Herdt reveals bildung, or ethical formation, as the key to post-Kantian thought. This was no simple process of secularization, in which human beings took responsibility for something they had earlier left in the hands of God. Rather, theorists of bildung, from Herder through Goethe to Hegel, championed human agency in self-determination while working out the social and political implications of our creation in the image of God. While bildung was invoked to justify racism and colonialism by stigmatizing those deemed resistant to self-cultivation, it also nourished ideals of dialogical encounter and mutual recognition. Herdt reveals how the project of forming humanity lives on in our ongoing efforts to grapple with this complicated legacy.

The 'Age of Revolution' is a term seldom used in Scandinavian historiography, despite the fact that Scandinavia was far from untouched by the late eighteenth-century revolutions in Europe and America. Scandinavia did experience its outbursts of radical thought, its assassinations and radical reforms, but these occurred within reasonably stable political structures, practices and ways of thinking. As recent research on the political cultures of the Nordic countries clearly demonstrates, the Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish experiences of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries offer a more differentiated look at what constitutes 'revolutionary' change in this period compared with other regions in Europe. They provide an alternative story of an incipient transition towards modernity, a 'Nordic model' in which radical change takes place within an apparent continuity of the established order. The long-term products of the processes of change that began in the Age of Revolution were some of the most progressive and stable political systems in the modern world. At the same time, the Scandinavian countries provide a number of instances which are directly relevant to comparisons particularly within the northwest European cultural area. Presenting the latest research on political culture in Scandinavia, this volume with twenty-seven contributions focuses on four key aspects: the crisis of monarchy; the transformation in political debate; the emerging influence of commercial interest in politics; and the shifting boundaries of political participation. Each section is preceded by an introduction that draws out the main themes of the chapters and how they contribute to the broader themes of the volume and to overall European history. Generously illustrated throughout, this book will introduce non-Scandinavian readers to developments in the Nordic countries during the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries and both complement and challenge research into the political cultures of Europe and America. Contents: Preface, Thomas Munck; General introduction, Pasi Ihalainen and Karen Sennefelt; Section I The Crisis and Renewal of Monarchy: The crisis and renewal of monarchy: introduction, Michael Bregnsbo; The monarchy in the Swedish age of liberty (1719-1772), Jonas Nordin; The image of kingship in Sweden 1772-1809, Henrika Tandefelt; Struensee and the political culture of absolutism, Michael Bregnsbo; The great, the pages and the end of 18th century Danish court culture, Ulrik Langen; Postal censorship and the control of public sentiment in late absolutist Denmark, Sune Christian Pedersen. Section II The Transformation of Political Debate: The transformation of political debate: introduction, Pasi Ihalainen; Gradual reconsiderations of Lutheran conceptions of politics, Michael Bregnsbo and Pasi Ihalainen; Aristocratic notions of liberty and patriotism in the age of liberty, Charlotta Wolff; Freedom of the press and social equality in Sweden, 1766-1772, Marie-Christine Skuncke; The politics of publishing: freedom of the press in Denmark, 1770-1773, Henrik Horstbøll; The transformation of Danish monarchism in the age of enlightenment, Jeppe Nevers; Continuity and change in the language of politics at the Swedish Diet, 1769-1810, Pasi Ihalainen and Anders Sundin; Marriage, family and gender in Swedish political language, 1750-1820, Karin Hassan Jansson. Section III Commercial Interests and Politics in Scandinavia, 1730-1815: Commercial interests and politics in Scandinavia, 1730-1815; introduction, Patrik Winton; The politics of commerce in Sweden, 1730-1770, Patrik Winton; The Swedish Diet as a forum for gathering commercial and political information, Petri Karonen; Political practices among merchants in Denmark and Norway in the period of absolutism, Bård Frydenlund; Iceland under British protection during the Napoleonic wars, Anna Agnarsdóttir. Section IV The Shifting Boundaries of Political Participation: The shifting boundaries of political p Pasi Ihalainen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, Michael Bregnsbo, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark, Karin Sennefelt, Uppsala University, Sweden and Patrik Winton, Uppsala University, Sweden.

Age of Entanglement explores the connections that linked German and Indian intellectuals from the nineteenth century through the Second World War as they shared ideas, formed networks, and studied one another's worlds. But, as Kris Manjapra shows, transnational intellectual entanglements are not inherently liberal or conventionally cosmopolitan.