The Digital Encyclopedia of British Sociability in the Long Eighteenth Century

Explore the wide range of topics related to British sociability from 1650 to 1850 and discover how the circulation of models of sociability shaped European and colonial societies.

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

Find out more

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
  • Share content with online media and social networks

Latest entries

People Concepts

Edmund Burke

COL Norbert
While Edmund Burke was a lifelong practitioner of sociability at all possible levels ̶ familial, intellectual and political ̶ , what is far more arresting are the gaps between his early theorising, in Sublime and Beautiful, and what happened with the French Revolution. The latter helped Burke show that ambition was now destructive of sociability, no longer just one of its components.

Laurence Sterne (1713-1768)

TADIÉ Alexis
While Laurence Sterne was not one of the most prolific novelists of the eighteenth century, he was certainly the one who understood best the mechanisms of celebrity, and who used his appetite for sociability to further his reputation.
People
Places Practices

La Société Olympique (et son concert)

PAYEUR Camille
Cette notice sur la Société Olympique, dont le concert fut en activité à Paris de 1786 à 1789, a pour objectif de présenter la particularité de cette institution musicale parisienne entièrement financée par une organisation maçonnique.

Anthology

Database of primary sources. New front page soon...

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Latest News

GIS SOCIABILITES MASTER'S THESIS PRIZE 2024

January 31st 2025
4th edition of the GIS Sociabilités MA Thesis Prize - Deadline for submission: 31 January 2025

EMECC-EHRC-GHCC Joint Seminar: No Country for Travellers? British Visitors to Spain and Portugal, 1760-1820

December 5th 2024
Talk by Roey Sweet (Leicester), chaired by Nathalie Hanley-Smith. Thursday, Dec. 5th, from 12:00 to 13:00 (UK time) University of Warwick, Humanities Research Center, OC0.04 Faculty of Arts Building and on MS Teams

Seminar 'The Politics of the Sociable Self' - 'Sociability & Animality', Rennes 2, 8 November 2024

November 8th 2024
GIS Sociabilités seminar 'The Politics of the Sociable Self' First thematic session on 'Sociability & Animality', Université de Rennes 2, 8 November 2024 from 17:00 to 19:00.