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Conversation [ Communication / Education / Social interaction / Language & Speech ]

… Abstract Conversation was a polysemic practice of sociability in leisured and learned classes. Ideally, it cultivated politeness, … controversy and collision of mind as well as harmony. Defined as a means of individual improvement and self-fashioning, conversation also aimed to develop not just knowledge but the mind and critical faculties.  Conversations that were part of the fabric of social and familial exchanges were the inspiration for instructional …

French epistolary novel [ Literary & Artistic genres / Reading & Writing ]

… Abstract Profitant du phénomène éditorial que sont les secrétaires, liée aussi bien à la société de la conversation, dont la lettre est un prolongement et un succédané, qu’à la vogue des correspondances célèbres qui … nouvel ordre social. Concepts > Literary & Artistic genres Practices > Reading & Writing Keywords Letter Letter-writing Conversation Epistolary novel Richardson Montesquieu Rousseau Laclos Le roman épistolaire est l’une des formes … les plus accomplies qu’assume la sociabilité française du XVIII e siècle qui s’identifie principalement avec la conversation, rite central de l’art de vivre en société 1  et expression de l’idéal de l’honnêteté. ‘Genre amphibie, la …

Conversation piece [ Art & Luxury ]

… started to offer a new mode of portraiture expressive of this culture. After a tentative start in the 1720s, the ‘conversation piece’ took off around 1730, thanks to artists such as William Hogarth, Gawen Hamilton, and Charles Philips. … flourished in early eighteenth-century Britain, so a new mode of portraiture was developed to encapsulate them: the conversation piece. 1   Whilst this category became more capacious as the century progressed, and key characteristics of … of sociability from the period. 1 . This DIGIT.EN.S entry draws on material from my book. Kate Retford, The Conversation Piece: Making Modern Art in Eighteenth-Century Britain (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2017). …

Samuel Johnson [ Art and Literature ]

… Johnson was one of the foremost and most controversial literary men of his age, and a leading figure of intellectual and conversational life in London. He loved the activities of intelligent society, and was instrumental in forming clubs for … of intelligent women and had several long-standing and loyal female friends. People > Art and Literature Keywords Conversation Clubs Intellect Fame London Gender Depression Unkempt, ungainly, uncouth, with appallingly gluttonous table manners, aggressively loud, rude and argumentative, a conversational bully, perpetually racked by bodily tics and compulsions, blind in one eye, hard of hearing, and his face …

Scientific experiments [ Politics & Society / Science ]

… societies, and public lectures. They conveyed natural knowledge through shared aesthetic experiences; they also elicited conversation and facilitated new forms of sociability. At the beginning of the era, William Whiston and others showed … science chemistry electricity mechanics public lecture association Meeting Society Coffeehouses Public sphere Conversation Scientific experiments played a significant role in the spaces of sociability that characterized British … clubs, assembly rooms, coffeehouses, and taverns. Experiments occurred in settings of social interaction and conversation; they were performed as part of educational curricula and in public lectures offered to paying audiences. As …

Tea-table [ Furniture & Interior decoration / Rituals & Ceremonies / Eating & Drinking ]

… encounter, including both men and women, occasioned by the consumption of tea, and typically characterized as focused on conversation and gossip. Objects > Furniture & Interior decoration Practices > Rituals & Ceremonies Practices > Eating & Drinking Keywords Tea Tea-table Polite sociability Public sphere Domesticity Conversation Gossip The tea-table is an object, an event, and an idea: that is to say, it is at once an item of … tea-table’ increasingly referred not only to the piece of furniture, but also the company assembled at tea, the kind of conversation established there, and the social gathering in general.   Tea-table as idea The tea-table as an idea is …