Four illuminating 18th-century lives   

Aims

This course aims to:

• introduce you to four fascinating 18th-century lives
• equip you to understand the 18th-century roots of modern life-writing and 
  ideas of ‘self’
• reveal the shaping influence of Nash, Equiano, the Duchess of Marlborough and Boswell on the Georgian public sphere

Course content

This five-day course draws on accounts of the lives of four leading 18th-century public figures to chart the origins of many of our modern ideas about biography, autobiography, the self, public and private – indeed, modernity itself. Each fascinating in their own right, the four personages that form the cast-list of this course have much to tell us about place, race, gender and rank in 18th-century society and culture. Accounts of their lives – from their own pens and from the pens of their contemporaries – give us a striking view of the modern public sphere at a formative time in its own life.

What to expect on this course

This course, which is a British history course, will be taught across five seminars. Each of the first four seminars will examine a different 18th-century life, with the fifth seminar bringing those lives together in a set of reflections on 18th-century society and culture as a whole. Seminars will involve a mixture of lecture, class discussion and group activity. The style of the seminars is informal, friendly and relaxed, and questions are actively encouraged at all stages!

Course sessions

1. Richard ‘Beau’ Nash at Bath
2. Olaudah Equiano and the abolition of the slave trade
3. Sarah Duchess of Marlborough: court and class
4. James Boswell in London
5. Life writing, the eighteenth-century self, and the modern public sphere

Learning outcomes

As a result of the course, you will gain a greater understanding of the subject and you should be able to:

• deepen your knowledge of four 18th-century lives
• reveal the 18th-century origins of modern life-writing and ideas of the self
• see the shaping influence of Nash, Equiano, the Duchess of Marlborough and Boswell on the Georgian public sphere

Required reading

There is no required reading for this course. See Course materials for supplementary reading once registered