Nineteenth-Century Energies - 9780367023638

Taylor & Francis

Nineteenth-Century EnergiesLiterature, Technology, Culture\nAuthor(s): Lynn Voskuil\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd, United Kingdom\nImprint: Routledge\nISBN-13: 9780367023638, 978-0367023638\nSynopsis\nNineteenth-Century Energies explores the idea of energy, a concept central to new directions in interdisciplinary studies today. It examines the cultural perceptions and uses of energy in the nineteenth century both in terms of pure and applied science, and as an idea with widespread diffusion in the popular imagination in contributions by scholars drawing on a variety of fields, such as literature, philosophy, history, French studies, Latin American studies, cinema studies, and art history. These contributions explore the rise of insomnia as a recognized ailment, the role of guns and gun culture in the perception of human agency, the first uses of the barometer to predict massive cyclonic weather systems, and the hallucinatory, almost occult effects of radia.