{"product_id":"the-unfinished-enlightenment-joanna-stalnaker-9780801448645","title":"The Unfinished Enlightenment","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Unfinished Enlightenment\u003c\/i\u003e, Joanna Stalnaker offers a fresh look at the French Enlightenment by focusing on the era's vast, collective attempt to compile an ongoing and provisional description of the world. Through a series of readings of natural histories, encyclopedias, scientific poetry, and urban topographies, the book uncovers the deep epistemological and literary tensions that made description a central preoccupation for authors such as Buffon, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Diderot, Delille, and Mercier. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStalnaker argues that Enlightenment description was the site of competing truth claims that would eventually resolve themselves in the modern polarity between literature and science. By the mid-nineteenth century, the now habitual association between description and the novel was already firmly anchored in French culture, but just a century earlier, in the diverse network of articles on description in Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie and in the works derived from it, there was not a single mention of the novel. Instead, we find articles on description in natural history, geometry, belles-lettres, and poetry. Stalnaker builds on the premise that the tendency to view description as the inevitable (and subservient) partner of narration--rather than as a universal tool for making sense of knowledge in all fields--has obscured the central place of description in Enlightenment discourse. As a result, we have neglected some of the most original and experimental works of the eighteenth century.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Joanna Stalnaker\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0801448646\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780801448645\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Cornell University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/15\/2010\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 256\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.05lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.00d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 10\/01\/2010\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eReference and Research Bk News\u003c\/i\u003e 08\/01\/2010 pg. 260","brand":"Joanna Stalnaker","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":48086868525311,"sku":"9780801448645","price":59.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_55a16f3c-bd76-45ae-a5d8-d1eb6baee9fa.jpg?v=1769097048","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-unfinished-enlightenment-joanna-stalnaker-9780801448645","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}