Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-162). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of History, June 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Germanic Studies, August 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

This thesis analyses perceptions of ghosts in Scotland, with particular focus on the period from 1685 to c. 1830. According to traditional wisdom, this was a time when society was becoming progressively more rational, with magical beliefs melting away under the glare of Enlightenment scholarship. However, this thesis argues that ghosts actually rose to a new cultural prominence in this period, to the extent that Scotland came to be characterised as a haunted nation. The first chapter provides context, sketching attitudes towards ghosts from the Middle Ages to the late seventeenth century. It shows how ghosts were sidelined because of their questionable theological status, especially after the Reformation. The second chapter explores late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century attempts to reincorporate ghosts into Protestant society by converting them into religious propagandists. This endeavour was not only theologically problematic, but also came to be criticised on scientific grounds. Chapter three traces the evolution of sceptical and satirical depictions of ghosts, as well as discussing the debates that sprang up in the late eighteenth century as ghosts increasingly became an interesting object of enquiry. Under the pens of physicians and philosophers a medicalised vision of the ghost became widely influential. Literary works drew upon this interpretation, but also used gothic motifs to re-invest ghosts with horror. The fourth chapter discusses this theme, before exploring how romantic literature and folklore popularised a picturesque ghost that became entangled with conceptions of national identity. Finally, chapter five analyses the place of ghosts within popular culture. It uses ballads, cheap print and folklorists’ accounts to assess how and why ghosts remained important to the ordinary Scottish folk. The thesis as a whole shows how the ghost’s identity splintered in response to changing cultural contexts, allowing ghosts to take on new roles in Scottish society. This in turn reflects on broader questions of religious change, interactions between popular and elite culture, the formation of national identity and the legacy of the Enlightenment.

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The present study investigates the failure of the Enlightenment to liberate Englishwomen from the prejudices society and law imposed upon them. Classifying social classes by lifestyle, the roles of noble, middleclass, and criminal women, as well as the attitudes of contemporary writers of both sexes, are analyzed. This investigation concludes that social mores limited noblewomen to ornamental roles and condemned them to exist in luxurious boredom; forced middle-class women to emulate shining domestic images which contrasted sharply with the reality of their lives; subjected women of desperate circumstances to a criminal code rendered erratic and inconsistent by contemporary attitudes, and impelled the Enlightenment to invent new defenses for old attitudes toward women.

This thesis presents an analysis of Edmund Burke's place in intellectual history by examining his commentary on the French Revolution as well as his role in the Enlightenment itself. In doing so, it brings to bear the previously unexplored ideas of the twentieth-century historian Roy Porter. The thesis proposes that Burke's indictment of French philosophy as the cause of the French Revolution created enduring historiographic connotations between radicalism and the notion of enlightenment. Consequently, British thinkers of the eighteenth-century were invariably dismissed as conservative or reactionary and therefore unworthy to be regarded as enlightened figures. Porter's reconsideration of the British Enlightenment reveals Burke to be a staunch defender of hard-won enlightened values which British society had already long enjoyed.<p>The source material is, for the most part, primary. For Edmund Burke, his correspondence and his Reflections on the Revolution in France. For Roy Porter, his most relevant essays, journal articles and monographs.

This thesis presents an analysis of Edmund Burke's place in intellectual history by examining his commentary on the French Revolution as well as his role in the Enlightenment itself. In doing so, it brings to bear the previously unexplored ideas of the twentieth-century historian Roy Porter. The thesis proposes that Burke's indictment of French philosophy as the cause of the French Revolution created enduring historiographic connotations between radicalism and the notion of enlightenment. Consequently, British thinkers of the eighteenth-century were invariably dismissed as conservative or reactionary and therefore unworthy to be regarded as enlightened figures. Porter's reconsideration of the British Enlightenment reveals Burke to be a staunch defender of hard-won enlightened values which British society had already long enjoyed.<p>The source material is, for the most part, primary. For Edmund Burke, his correspondence and his Reflections on the Revolution in France. For Roy Porter, his most relevant essays, journal articles and monographs.

What does emancipation mean today? In political theory, the idea of emancipation has typically been understood as a process of rationalization involving the promotion of human rights or the historical overcoming of capitalism. However, in contemporary social criticism the earlier antagonism between liberalism and Marxism has largely been replaced by the conflict between Enlightenment thinking and Enlightenment critique. The tension between Enlightenment philosophy and Enlightenment skepticism can be taken as emblematic of the two main tendencies within contemporary critical thought. However, a similar ambivalence can be found in the classical critical theory of the so-called Frankfurt School. Given that we have to distinguish between two types of critical theoretical thought, is it even possible to answer the question about emancipation in an unambiguous way? The overall aim of this study is to examine the meaning of emancipation in contemporary critical thought. More specifically, the principal aim is to demonstrate that Jürgen Habermas’s critical theory can be understood as an attempt to overcome the opposition between the early and the late Frankfurt School in order subsequently to evaluate this attempt and thereby judge whether Habermas’s approach can serve as a key for combining the concepts of emancipation corresponding to these two types of critique. My main objection to Habermas’s reformulation of critical theory is that it is characterized by a lack of emancipatory potential and a lack of critical force. In trying to pave the way for an alternative approach, my strategy for accommodating the tensions between the two models of critical theory is to show that emancipation can be viewed as a process involving three disparate yet interconnected stages: an initial break in the continuity of history; a collective political struggle in order to realize the utopian vision thereby opened up; and, a possible understanding among the participants in a discourse.

This dissertation examines pre-Kantian rational philosophy and the development of the discipline of aesthetics in the North German Enlightenment. With emphasis on the historical conception of the physiological and psychological experience of music, this project determines the function of music both privately and socially in the eighteenth century. As a result, I identify the era of rational aesthetics (ca.1750-1800) as a music-historical period unified by the aesthetic function and metaphysical experience of music, which inform the underlying motivation for musical styles, genres, and means of expression, leading to a more meaningful and compelling historical periodization. The philosophy of Alexander Baumgarten, Johann Georg Sulzer, and others enable definitions of the experience of beautiful objects and those concepts related to music composition, listening, and taste, and determine how rational aesthetics impacted the practice, function, and ultimately the prevailing style of music in the era. The construction, style, and performance means of the free fantasia, the most personal and expressive genre of the era, identify its function as the private act of solitude, or a musical meditation. An examination of pleasure societies establishes the role of music in performance and discussion in both social gatherings and learned musical clubs for conveying the morally good, which results in the spread of good taste. Taken together, the complimentary practices of private and social music played a significant role in eighteenth-century life for developing the self, through personal taste, and society, through a morally good culture.