{"product_id":"sensitive-witnesses-feminist-materialism-in-the-british-enlightenment-hardback-9781503633032","title":"Sensitive Witnesses; Feminist Materialism in the British Enlightenment (Hardback) 9781503633032","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eSensitive Witnesses\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eFeminist Materialism in the British Enlightenment\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eKristin M. Girten (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781503633032\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 13 February 2024\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e246 pages, 1 halftone\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.433 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"Girten demonstrates, thoroughly and convincingly, that materialism constituted an alternative conception of early science to the mainstream, Baconian view. This is an important book, very much part of one of the central conversations currently unfolding in science and literature studies.\"\u003cbr\u003e  —Jess Keiser, Tufts University \"\u003ci\u003eSensitive Witnesses\u003c\/i\u003e is a fluently written and well-researched study that moves nimbly between philosophical sources and a wide range of literary genres to enrich our understanding of Enlightenment ways of knowing.\"\u003cbr\u003e  —Sarah Tindal Kareem, University of California, Los Angeles \"A figure for our own time, Girten's sensitive witness emerges as the unashamed hero of a history of scientific passions.\"\u003cbr\u003e  —Wendy Anne Lee, New York University \"Girten illuminates Enlightenment thinkers who utilized 'sublime knowledge-making and sensitive witnessing' to 'develop an appreciation for their continuity with the material world.' She also connects the Enlightenment past to the present, calling for 'a new, sensitive, \"great instauration\" in which we learn how to touch and be touched by nature, with a sense of continuity, relationality, gentleness, and care. Recommended.'\"—M. G. Spencer, \u003ci\u003eCHOICE\u003c\/i\u003e \"\u003ci\u003eSensitive Witnesses\u003c\/i\u003e excels in bringing to light the ways that these five women sought to understand the world around them and disseminate their findings.... Girten [uses] their work to reveal that early modern natural philosophy was more heterogenous than traditional readings, viewed through the lens of Bacon and the Royal Society, suggest.\"—Peter West, \u003ci\u003eABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830\u003c\/i\u003e \"Kristen Girten's \u003ci\u003eSensitive Witnesses\u003c\/i\u003e crafts an exhilarating and revisionary argument for Enlightenment women's material attunement to nature.\"—Helen Thompson, \u003ci\u003eEighteenth-Century Studies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eKristin M. Girten tells a new story of feminist knowledge-making in the Enlightenment era by exploring the British female philosophers who asserted their authority through the celebration of profoundly embodied observations, experiences, and experiments.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis book explores the feminist materialist practice of sensitive witnessing, establishing an alternate history of the emergence of the scientific method in the eighteenth century. Francis Bacon and other male natural philosophers regularly downplayed the embodied nature of their observations. They presented themselves as modest witnesses, detached from their environment and entitled to the domination and exploitation of it. In contrast, the author-philosophers that Girten takes up asserted themselves as intimately entangled with matter—boldly embracing their perceived close association with the material world as women. Girten shows how Lucy Hutchinson, Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood, and Charlotte Smith took inspiration from materialist principles to challenge widely accepted \"modest\" conventions for practicing and communicating philosophy.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eForerunners of the feminist materialism of today, these thinkers recognized the kinship of human and nonhuman nature and suggested a more accessible, inclusive version of science. Girten persuasively argues that our understanding of Enlightenment thought must take into account these sensitive witnesses' visions of an alternative scientific method informed by profound closeness with the natural world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e  Introduction\u003cbr\u003e  1. Epicurean Soft Science: Lucy Hutchinson and Margaret Cavendish\u003cbr\u003e  2. Libertine Epicureanism and Scientific Critique: Aphra Behn\u003cbr\u003e  3. Espionage, Skepticism, and the Process of Philosophy: Eliza Haywood\u003cbr\u003e  4. A Science That Cares: Charlotte Smith\u003cbr\u003e  Coda\u003cbr\u003e  Notes\u003cbr\u003e  Index\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Stanford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52610680979736,"sku":"9781503633032","price":42.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/sensitive-witnesses-feminist-materialism-in-the-british-enlightenment-hardback-9781503633032","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}