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Technology, Self-Fashioning and Politeness in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Refined Bodies

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Authors:
  1. Alun Withey

    1. University of Exeter, UK

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-x
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  2. Introduction: Framing the Enlightened Body

    • Alun Withey
    Pages 1-17

  3. Shaping the Body: The Politics of Posture

    • Alun Withey
    Pages 18-40

  4. Shaving and Masculinity in Eighteenth-Century Britain

    • Alun Withey
    Pages 41-64

  5. Managing the Body: The Material Culture of Personal Grooming

    • Alun Withey
    Pages 65-90

  6. New Ways of Seeing: Sight, Spectacles and Self-Fashioning

    • Alun Withey
    Pages 91-112

  7. Coda: Surgical Instruments and Bodily Transformation

    • Alun Withey
    Pages 113-129

  8. Conclusion: (Re)constructing the Eighteenth-Century Body

    • Alun Withey
    Pages 130-137

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 138-162
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Keywords

About this book

The second half of the eighteenth century brought important changes in attitudes towards shaping the body. New expectations of polite conduct, deportment and demeanour were projected onto the body, with emphasis laid upon neatness, elegance and a 'natural' body shape. Deformities were to be concealed, whilst bodily surfaces were managed to convey a harmonious whole. A large number of 'technologies of the body' were involved in this process, including wooden legs, elastic trusses, and even wigs. But the introduction of a new type of steel - cast steel - around 1750, offered new material possibilities for shaping the body. The physical properties of steel transformed the design and function of many instruments, from postural devices to spectacles, and even the smallest daily items of toilette. By no means was steel the only material involved in transforming the body. Neither did it simply sweep away all that had gone before. But, as an 'enlightened metal', cast steel was a key material in the refinement of the body.

Reviews

“Divided into seven short chapters, Withey’s book … functions as a valuable introduction to the study of the intersection of consumer culture, new industrial processes (particularly the production of ‘cast’ or ‘crucible’ steel) and the cultivation of what Withey terms the ‘purposeful management of the body during the Enlightenment’. … Technology, Self-fashioning and Politeness in Eighteenth-century Britain is a very readable and useful work of cultural history.” (Jonathan Sawday, Social History of Medicine, Vol. 30 (1), February, 2017)

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Exeter, UK

    Alun Withey

About the author

Alun Withey is a historian of medicine and the body, and a Wellcome Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, UK. Withey's work on the medical history of early modern Wales (2012) was awarded the EAHMH Book Prize in 2013. His current research project explores the health and hygiene history of facial hair in Britain c. 1700-1918.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Technology, Self-Fashioning and Politeness in Eighteenth-Century Britain

  • Book Subtitle: Refined Bodies

  • Authors: Alun Withey

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137467485

  • Publisher: Palgrave Pivot London

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-46747-8Published: 03 December 2015

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-46748-5Published: 03 December 2015

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: X, 162

  • Topics: Cultural History, History of Science, History of Britain and Ireland, Modern History, Social History

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