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On Wonder

On Wonder

On Wonder

Literature and Science in the Long Eighteenth Century
Tita Chico, University of Maryland
February 2025
Available
Hardback
9781009539678

    This is an Element about wonder − as an object, as a feeling, as an invitation to study, and as a way of thinking in both literary and scientific texts of the long eighteenth century. Wonder is at the heart of natural philosophical inquiry in the long eighteenth century, its inaugural provocation, its long-standing problematic. Yet wonder requires observation and imagination, operating together, if uneasily, to give shape to forms of scientific, literary, and social knowledge, shaping how thinking works − and who can do it. Studying wonder in the long eighteenth century helps us to understand our current disciplinary configurations, and also how wonder itself embodies the potential for a more capacious critical practice. Studying wonder as an epistemology, praxis, and thematic in the long eighteenth century also carries the promise of invigorating and reimagining our own critical, creative endeavors.

    Product details

    February 2025
    Hardback
    9781009539678
    78 pages
    229 × 152 × 6 mm
    0.249kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • 1. Why wonder
    • 2. Defining wonder
    • 3. Science's wonder
    • 4. Wonder as veneration
    • 5. Wonder's science
    • 6. To know with wonder
    • 7. Wonder's subjunctive mood
    • 8. The ends of wonder
    • References.
      Author
    • Tita Chico , University of Maryland