The Digital Encyclopedia of British Sociability in the Long Eighteenth Century

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The Project

An innovative tool and an interdisciplinary approach

An open-access digital encyclopedia with a multi-modal search engine
An international and interdisciplinary project led by the GIS Sociabilités / Sociability since 2017
An EU-funded project (Horizon 2020-MSCA-RISE) since 2019, promoting staff exchange and intersectoral collaborations
A digital humanities project managed by an experienced editorial team
Encyclopedia entries written in English or French by eighteenth-century scholars in various fields (history, art history, literature, philosophy, material culture, linguistics ...) and reviewed by a dedicated committee
A complementary anthology of texts related to various aspects of sociability and connected to the entries

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Bringing academic research on eighteenth-century sociability to a wider audience

Explore the wide range of topics related to British Sociability from 1650 to 1850 and learn about the circulation of models of sociability that shaped European and colonial societies.
Discover the collaborative work between academic researchers on primary source material in their respective fields of expertise
Browse through 200 entries enriched with illustrations, hyperlinks, footnotes and further reading suggestions
Search by keywords, by alphabetical order or by categories (People, Places, Practices, Concepts, Objects) and sub-categories
Navigate easily through a dynamic and updatable resource
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Latest entries

People

William Wordsworth, the Worldly Recluse

DUPERRIER Félix

The literary career of William Wordsworth (1770-1850) spans nearly sixty years, charting not only his evolution from disaffected radical to Victorian sage, but also the events and changes that shaped his generation, and ultimately the British nation. At once a poet of the Lake District and, from 1843 onwards, the Poet Laureate, Wordsworth explored the concept of sociability on both local and national levels.

Laughter

DAVISON Kate

Laughter was considered fundamental to sociability in eighteenth-century Britain, but it was a complex social signal: as Samuel Johnson observed, ‘you may laugh in as many ways as you talk’. In its various guises, laughing could communicate anything from warmth to outright hostility; a well-placed chuckle could be the epitome of politeness, while an uncontrolled guffaw – especially triggered by a ‘lowbrow’ joke – was anything but.

Practices

Horseracing

HUGGINS Mike

Racing, Britain’s first proto-modern, widely-followed national sport, opens a window into wider sociability and cultural life. The annual race week created an important urban social space, involving both public and private sociability, attracting racehorse owners and gamblers; men and women; the country and towns-folk; and elite, middling and proletariat groups.

Anthology

As part of its H2020 programme (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (MSCA-RISE-2018)), the European Commission has granted significant financial support to DIGITENS, the flagship project of the Scientific Interest Grouping (GIS) “Sociabilités/Sociability”.