The Invention of Pornography, 1500-1800: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity

In America today the intense and controversial debate over the censorship of pornography continues to call into question the values of a modern, democratic culture. This ground-breaking collection of ten critical essays traces the history and various uses of pornography in early modern Europe, offering the historical perspective crucial to understanding current issues of artistic censorship

The essays, by historians and literary theorists, examine how pornography emerged between 1500 and 1800 as a literary practice and a category of knowledge intimately linked to the formative moments of Western modernity and the democratization of culture. They reveal that the first modern writers and engravers of pornography were part of the demimonde of heretics, freethinkers, and libertines who constituted the dark underside of the Renaissance, theScientific Revolution, the Enlightemnent, and the French Revolution. From the beginning, early modern European pornography used the shock of sex to test the boundaries and regulation of decent and obscene behavior and expression in the public and private spheres, criticizing and even subverting religious and political authorities as well social and sexual norms.

Lynn Hunt is the editor of The New Cultural History and the author of The Family Romance of the French Revolution.

Contents: Introduction, Lynn Hunt. Humanism, Politics, and Pornography in Renaissance Italy, Paula Findlen. The Politics of Pornography: L'Ecole des filles, Joan Dejean. Sometimes a Sceptre is only a Sceptre: Pornography and Politics in Restoration England, Rachel Weil. The Materialist World of Pornography, Margaret C. Jacob. Truth and the Obscene Word in Eighteenth-Century French Pornography, Lucienne Frappier-Mazur. The Pornographic Whore: Prostitution in French Pornography from Margot to Juliette, Kathryn Norberg. Erotic Fantasy and the Libertine Dispensation in Eighteenth-Century England, Randolph Trumbach. Politics and Pornography in the Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Dutch Republic, Wijnand W.Mijnhardt. Pornography and the French Revolution, Lynn Hunt.

Distributed by MIT Press. Ten essays trace the history and various uses of pornography in early modern Europe, offering historical perspective that sheds light on current issues of censorship. Among the themes is the linking of pornography as a literary practice with Western modernity and the democratization of culture.
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collection of ten essays tracing the history and various uses of pornography in early modern Europe

In this groundbreaking collection of essays, historians and literary theorists examine how, between 1500 and 1800, pornography emerged as a literary practice and a category of knowledge intimately linked to the formative moments of Western modernity and the democratization of culture. The first modern writers and engravers of pornography were part of the demimonde of heretics, freethinkers and libertines who constituted the dark underside of the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. From the start, early modern European pornography used the shock of sex to test the boundaries and regulation of obscene behavior and expression in the public and private sphere. As such, pornography criticized and even subverted political authorities as well as social and sexual relations.

In America today the debate over the censorship of pornography continues to call into question the values of a modern, democratic culture. The Invention of Pornography, a groundbreaking collection of critical essays, traces the history and uses of pornography in early modern Europe, offering for the first time the historical perspective crucial to understanding current controversies in politics and the arts.

Contents: Introduction, Lynn Hunt. Humanism, Politics, and Pornography in Renaissance Italy, Paula Findlen. The Politics of Pornography: L'Ecole des filles, Joan Dejean. Sometimes a Sceptre is only a Sceptre: Pornography and Politics in Restoration England, Rachel Weil. The Materialist World of Pornography, Margaret C. Jacob. Truth and the Obscene Word in Eighteenth-Century French Pornography, Lucienne Frappier-Mazur. The Pornographic Whore: Prostitution in French Pornography from Margot to Juliette, Kathryn Norberg. Erotic Fantasy and the Libertine Dispensation in Eighteenth-Century England, Randolph Trumbach. Politics and Pornography in the Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Dutch Republic, Wijnand W.Mijnhardt. Pornography and the French Revolution, Lynn Hunt.