Volume 26 of 1650–1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era travels beyond the usual discussions of power, identity, and cultural production to visit the purlieus and provinces of Britain’s literary empire. Bulging at its bindings are essays investigating out-of-the-way but influential ensembles, whether female religious enthusiasts, annotators of Maria Edgeworth’s underappreciated works, or modern video-based Islamic super-heroines energized by Mary Wollstonecraft’s irreverance. The global impact of the local is celebrated in studies of the personal pronoun in Samuel Johnson’s political writings and of the outsize role of a difficult old codger in catalyzing the literary career of Charlotte Smith. Headlining a volume that peers into minute details in order to see the outer limits of Enlightenment culture is a special feature on metaphor in long-eighteenth-century poetry and criticism. Five interdisciplinary essays investigate the deep Enlightenment origins of a trope usually associated with the rise of Romanticism. Volume 26 culminates in a rich review section containing fourteen responses to current books on Enlightenment religion, science, literature, philosophy, political science, music, history, and art.

About the annual journal 1650-1850
1650-1850 publishes essays and reviews from and about a wide range of academic disciplines: literature (both in English and other languages), philosophy, art history, history, religion, and science. Interdisciplinary in scope and approach, 1650-1850 emphasizes aesthetic manifestations and applications of ideas, and encourages studies that move between the arts and the sciences—between the “hard” and the “humane” disciplines. The editors encourage proposals for special features that bring together five to seven essays on focused themes within its historical range, from the Interregnum to the end of the first generation of Romantic writers. While also being open to more specialized or particular studies that match up with the general themes and goals of the journal, 1650-1850 is in the first instance a journal about the artful presentation of ideas that welcomes good writing from its contributors. 

ISSN 1065-3112.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Exploratory, investigative, and energetically analytical, 1650–1850 covers the full expanse of long eighteenth-century thought, writing, and art while delivering abundant revelatory detail. Essays on well-known cultural figures combine with studies of emerging topics to unveil a vivid rendering of a dynamic period, simultaneously committed to singular genius and universal improvement. Welcoming research on all nations and language traditions, 1650–1850 invites readers into a truly global Enlightenment. Topics in volume 29 include Samuel Johnson’s notions about the education of women and a refreshing account of Sir Joseph Banks’s globetrotting. A guest-edited, illustration-rich, interdisciplinary special feature explores the cultural implications of water. As always, 1650–1850 culminates in a bevy of full-length book reviews critiquing the latest scholarship on long-established specialties, unusual subjects, and broad reevaluations of the period.

Published by Bucknell University Press, distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

The study and reception of Samuel Johnson’s work has long been embedded in Japanese literary culture. The essays in this collection reflect that history and influence, underscoring the richness of Johnson scholarship in Japan, while exploring broader conditions in Japanese academia today. In examining Johnson’s works such as the Rambler (1750-52), Rasselas (1759), Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1779-81), and Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), the contributors—all members of the half-century-old Johnson Society of Japan—also engage with the work of other important English writers, namely Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, and Matthew Arnold, and later Japanese writers, including Natsume Soseki (1867-1916). If the state of Johnson studies in Japan is unfamiliar to Western academics, this volume offers a unique opportunity to appreciate Johnson’s centrality to Japanese education and intellectual life, and to reassess how he may be perceived in a different cultural context.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Oriental Networks explores forms of interconnectedness between Western and Eastern hemispheres during the long eighteenth century, a period of improving transportation technology, expansion of intercultural contacts, and the emergence of a global economy. In eight case studies and a substantial introduction, the volume examines relationships between individuals and institutions, precursors to modern networks that engaged in forms of intercultural exchange. Addressing the exchange of cultural commodities (plants, animals, and artifacts), cultural practices and ideas, the roles of ambassadors and interlopers, and the literary and artistic representation of networks, networkers, and networking, contributors discuss the effects on people previously separated by vast geographical and cultural distance. Rather than idealizing networks as inherently superior to other forms of organization, Oriental Networks also considers Enlightenment expressions of resistance to networking that inform modern skepticism toward the concept of the global network and its politics. In doing so the volume contributes to the increasingly global understanding of culture and communication.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.