Social interaction

Masquerades in London

Masquerades in London

LIPSKI Jakub
Masquerades – sociable assemblies of masked participants – developed into forms of public entertainment in eighteenth-century London, often welcoming crowds of participants in the fashionable centres of the metropolis, such as the Haymarket Theatre, Vauxhall Gardens or Ranelagh Gardens. The masquerade phenomenon provides insight into the category of personhood that was negotiated through a sociable performance of anonymity and new ‘selves’.
Royal Menagerie

Menageries

SASSO Eleonora
Georgian menageries are to be seen as the predecessors to the more formal zoological societies of the Victorian era. As the British Empire expanded, private and public menageries were populated by exotic animals seen as objects of fascination and wonder and whose aim was to entertain visitors and guests as well as to satisfy the curiosity for the animal world.
Doctor Johnson in the Ante-Room of the Lord Chesterfield Waiting for an Audience

Patronage

DOMSCH Sebastian
In the absence of fully developed markets, patronage (the relation between someone able to dispense something with social or economic value, such as money, connections, public acknowledgment, positions and someone who was able to return the favour with artistic or scientific productions) had for centuries been the main way in which the creation of art – from painting to music and architecture as well as literature – could be realized.
Public opinion (journalism and communication)

Public opinion (journalism and communication)

LOMBARDINILO Andrea
Journals and books played a relevant role in the construction of modern public opinion and the diffusion of new forms of sociability shrewdly investigated in the twentieth century. As some of the most significant scholars of cultural processes point out (such as Innis, Habermas, McLuhan, Williams), the construction of popular public opinion is one of the most significant characteristics of the eighteenth century, especially in England.
Hogart

Rake

LEUNER Sara
This entry explores the rake archetype from his literary origins as a symbol of male elitism and excess, to his cultural impact on eighteenth-century collective consciousness. From his inception during the Restoration to his apparent decline towards the end of the Georgian era, the figure seems deeply intertwined with the specific hic et nunc of eighteenth-century Great Britain.
Scottish Clans

Scottish clans

JUILLET-GARZON Sabrina
This entry gives an overview of the social structures, manners and sociability of the Scottish clans during the long 18th century. It presents the debates about their place in the Scottish and British societies in the context of the Union of 1707 and the Jacobite rebellions as well as of the Enlightenment ideas of improvement in society.