From Perfectibility To Perversion: Meliorism In Eighteenth-century France (The Age of Revolution and Romanticism: Interdisciplinary Studies)
Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing
Published: July 1, 2005
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 189
ISBN-13: 9780820474953
Subjects: European - French; General; Europe - France; Sociology - General; Social Science; Literature - Classics / Criticism; 18th century; France; French literature; History; History and criticism; Medicine; Philosophy, French; Sociology
Description: "From Perfectibility to Perversion: Meliorism in Eighteenth-Century France traces the evolution of human perfectibility discourse during the second half of the eighteenth century and the early post-Revolutionary era in France. Examining key articulations of Enlightenment meliorism as it shifts between open-ended models of human perfectibility and "fixist" conceptions of the human body, this book will appeal to a range of specialists because it draws on a variety of primary sources, from Buffon and Rousseau to important medical theorists of the pre- and post-Revolutionary period, and juxtaposes seemingly disparate domains of inquiry in informative and provocative fashion."--BOOK JACKET.