This dissertation is about the formations of the king as knowledge of the political in early eighteenth-century Brahmaputra Valley, in present day northeast India. Here, I identify three areas as the sites of the political: courtly-monastic politics, pleasure, and law. Each chapter of the dissertation presents a contemporary iteration of the king that contributed to the understanding of the political in early eighteenth-century Brahmaputra Valley. In doing so, I propose an understanding of kingship founded in the person of the king. Drawing on expressive literature, epigraphs, and visual sources written in the first few decades of the eighteenth century in the court of the Tungkhungia kings of Brahmaputra Valley and the Vaiṣṇava monasteries in the region, I argue that the person (and the body) of the king was the site of the political in the courtly-monastic spaces. This understanding of a personalised kingship in the courtly-monastic spaces was in dialogue with transregional political imaginations of kingship, both imperial Mughal and subimperial Rajput of early modern South Asia. In the dissertation, I bring together sources in Assamese, Persian, Sanskrit, and Tai-Ahom towards revealing the ways in which a distinct local articulation of the king in areas of politics, pleasure, and law was located within translocal and transregional networks of learning stretching across the regions lying to the western and southern borders of the territories of the Tungkhungia kings. Through a conceptualisation of early eighteenth-century Brahmaputra Valley as a “contact zone” between Mughal-Rajput, Tai-Ahom, and Burmese cultural forms that clashed and grappled in the wake of Brahman arrival in the court of the Tungkhungia kings I historicise the multiple iterations of the king towards understanding the intellectual conditions that emerged as foundations of a new political imagination. Moving away from cultural histories of kingship in early modern South Asia where studies of cultural productions have remained the lens for analysis of kingship; in this dissertation I look at the formations of the king within specific areas of intellectual inquiry towards writing a history of the multiple iterations of the king, across institutions, in early eighteenth-century Brahmaputra Valley. The dissertation, thus, intervenes in the study of kingship in early modern South Asia and the World, demonstrating the centrality of the person of the king, in contemporary understandings of the political, rather than the “body politic” that is immutable and imperishable. The dissertation, thus, with its focus on early eighteenth-century Brahmaputra Valley, brings to light theories of the political emerging from the margins of imperial histories of early modern South Asia and the World.

<P> This dissertation explores literary representations of North American Indigenous people in eighteenth-century British texts. Throughout the century, "Indians" appeared frequently in British print culture, in newspapers, periodicals, and travel narratives, but the primary focus in this work is on imaginative writing such as novels, plays, poetry, and essays. Many of these texts are surprisingly overlooked, and scholarship regularly diminishes the significance of Indians in literature during the period. I argue that these texts explore modernity through Indigenous subjectivity, and ultimately contribute to the shaping of modem British identity. </p> <p> While the figure of the Indian is often thought of as a primitive "noble savage," Indians were also used to negotiate modem discourses which Britons were beginning to encounter throughout the eighteenth century. The important developments in British culture during the time, such as the forming of a unified British identity, the rise of capitalism and consumerism, and empire, impacted the lives and identities of Britons, and the Indian was used as a kind of "other self' to negotiate their effects. This dynamic began with texts surrounding the 1710 visit by four Iroquois "Indian kings" to London a few years following the Acts of Union, and increased mid-century as conflict in the colonies escalated. First Nations people began to play an important strategic role and were more frequently encountered by British soldiers and travellers, which led to a rise in textual representation in the metropolis. Both as critics of European culture and discursive sites upon which to project emerging cultural forces, Indians functioned as imagined modem subjects; by the end of the century, the figure of the Indian became appropriated by the Romantics and other writers, and the hybrid Briton who internalized Indigenous fortitude and cultural tenacity became the corrective to the decadence and corruption of European culture. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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<p>Women in the eighteenth-century were faced with a systematic denial of their most basic human rights. This was accomplished through the institutions of the time. These same institutions were the objects of the criticism of the philosophes. Voltaire is commonly recognized as the father of the Enlightenment and it is, therefore, important to determine his attitude towards women as reflected in the genre for which he is best known, the conte.</p> <p>This thesis deals with Voltaire's depiction of women on three levels. The first chapter situates women in their social environment as portrayed by Voltaire and his depiction's philosophical implications. The second chapter deals with the female characters' mental and emotional reactions to their status. The third chapter deals with Voltaire's portrayal of women's bodies and its significance to his philosophy. A complete vision of women as portrayed by Voltaire is provided, along with the implications of his depiction of women.</p> / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

This thesis examines the role of microscope technology in informing medical and anatomical knowledge during the Enlightenment. Past historians have claimed that microscopy generally stagnated until the popularisation of achromatic microscopes and cell theory in the middle of the nineteenth century. As evidence for this decline, historians have pointed to the poor quality and slow development of microscope designs until the popularisation of achromatic microscopes in the 1820s. In contrast, this thesis highlights the role of specific Enlightenment-era microscopes in answering medical and anatomical questions. It suggests that medical microscopy was far more advanced than previous scholarship has ascertained. Thus far, instrument historians have focused more attention on competing instrument makers as opposed to rival instrument users. This thesis presents several case studies which explore both makers and users. These concern the histories of Enlightenment-era epidemiology, reproduction theory, anatomy, and physiology as well as the different types of microscopes which influenced these fields. In terms of methodology, this thesis neither follows nor casts doubt on any particular theory of historical development; rather, it attempts to shed further light on available primary sources and their contexts. Presenting key case studies illustrates the difficulties that early microscope users faced in acquiring and publishing new observations. To explore the practice of early microscopy further, this thesis presents re-enactments of these case studies using Enlightenment-era microscopes and modern tissue samples. Thus, this thesis is a call to broaden the scope of primary sources available to historians of science and medicine to include instruments and re-enactments. This thesis finds that technological advances did not correlate to microscopical discovery in medicine or anatomy. Both simple and complex microscope designs aided anatomical and medical research. Broader advances in anatomy, physiology, and medical etiology dictated the utility of medical microscopy. Although various groups, such as the French clinicians, saw little need for microscopy towards the end of the eighteenth century, microscope-based evidence continued to play a diagnostic role among lesser-known practitioners despite its lack of visibility in medical literature.

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This thesis examines the Great West Window at Exeter Cathedral designed by William Peckitt of York (1731-95). Peckitt was arguably the most important glass designer of the eighteenth century and undertook prestigious commissions at York, Oxford and elsewhere. In 1764 he was contracted by the Dean of Exeter, Jeremiah Milles, to supply glass to complete the restoration of the Cathedral’s glazing and to make the new window, which has often been considered to be his masterpiece. Peckitt’s Great West Window is no longer extant (although portions of it have been salvaged), having been replaced in 1904 with a window, designed by Messrs Burlison and Grylls, which was itself destroyed by enemy action in 1942. The Burlison and Grylls window was more in keeping with the Gothic revival aesthetic typical of the later nineteenth century and its proponents had argued forcefully that Peckitt’s Great West Window was an aberration that needed to be removed. The thesis provides initially an account of the debate that raged in the national press and beyond about the propriety of replacing Peckitt’s window. This documentary evidence gives a valuable insight into attitudes towards the adornment of churches at the turn of the century: should respect for the extant fabric include Peckitt’s one-hundred-and-fifty year-old contribution or should the building be renovated with a modern medieval-revival window. Until recent times it was largely the case that eighteenth-century glass was regarded as wholly inferior to the medieval glass that preceded it and it is widely accepted that glass making in Britain only recovered with the nineteenth-century Gothic revival and the modern glass that followed it. In this thesis it is suggested that the denigration of eighteenth-century glass and in particular that of William Peckitt at Exeter, ignores its qualities, practical and intellectual, and the Great West Window is used to reveal the seriousness of such endeavours. Peckitt’s work is positioned within the context of the particular circumstances of the restoration of Exeter Cathedral in the mid-eighteenth century under two successive Deans, Charles Lyttelton and the aforementioned Jeremiah Milles, both of whom were nationally significant antiquarian scholars. Peckitt was knowledgeable about medieval glass techniques, worked sensitively in restoring medieval glass and when designing a completely new window for the Cathedral worked closely with Milles to provide an iconographical scheme that was appropriate for the Cathedral, its history and its patrons. The evidence brought forward suggests that it is wrong to presume that glass designers like Peckitt had little understanding of medieval glass manufacture nor any interest in using the medium of glass appropriately in the context of a medieval building.