Volcanoes in Eighteenth-Century Europe: An Essay in Environmental Humanities
by David McCallam
Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment 2019:07
ISBN: 9781786942296, 288 pages, £65.00
This study explores the explosive history of volcanoes and volcanic thought in eighteenth-century Europe. The volcano emerges as a privileged 'tool for thinking' about continental tourism, new earth sciences, the sublime and picturesque in art, industrial and political revolution, conceptions of the nation-state, and early modern climate change. The volcano is clearly transnational; this research demonstrates how it is fundamentally transdisciplinary.
- A model transdisciplinary study, combining travel literature, scientific writings, art criticism, philosophical speculation, political rhetoric, and climatological and ecological investigations.
- It draws on primary sources in several languages, including English, French, Italian and German.
- This study provides a major contribution to the emerging environmental understanding of the European Enlightenment.
Table of Contents:
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1: From locus classicus to cosmopolitan picnic site
The disturbing discovery of Herculaneum and Pompeii
The classical and empirical on Etna
Curiosity and katabasis
Gothic picnics on the volcano: Winckelmann and Sade
Tourist picnics on Vesuvius
From picnic sites to the land of Cockaigne
Incommensurability and measure
Chapter 2: Two modern 'Plinies' and the empirical turn
On the influence of Kircher and chemistry
Volcanological theories based on seawaters and electricity
The basalt controversy and the empirical turn
Volcanological networks and rival schools of thought
Chapter 3: On the volcanic sublime, its art and artifice
Eighteenth-century theories of the sublime: Burke and Kant
The Alpine sublime and the volcanic sublime
The volcano as tableau
The sublime volcano in art
Artificial volcanoes
The uncanny fascination with lava
Industrial volcanoes
From the sublime spectacle to the sublime spectator
Chapter 4: More heat than light? Natural philosophies of volcanism
An anti-clerical volcano
The volcano of popular passions
The volcano as a source of enlightenment
Prometheus versus Empedocles
Chapter 5: A volcanology of revolution 1789-1794
Staging the volcano of revolution
The volcano and the Terror
June 1794: Vesuvius and the Terror
Chapter 6: Volcanic Iceland: conquering Hekla and surviving Laki
Banks on Staffa and Hekla
The deadliest volcano: Laki 1783
Lived experiences of the Laki eruption and its effects 1783-1784
Eighteenth-century explanations for volcanogenic weather
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
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"The erupting volcano became such a ubiquitous image in eighteenth-century Europe that even for those who hadn't seen one in person it gave material form to their various philosophies of 'enlightenment'." (Read David McCallam's accompanying blog post)
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David McCallam is Reader in French Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of Sheffield, UK. His main areas of research are eighteenth-century French literature (Chamfort, Laclos, Chénier, Sade); eighteenth-century travel writing (Alps, southern Italy, eastern Adriatic); and eighteenth-century environmental humanities (volcanoes, avalanches, clouds).
The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.