Revolutionary electricity in 1790: shock, consensus, and the birth of a political metaphor.

IF 0.7 1区 哲学 Q2 HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE British Journal for the History of Science Pub Date : 2021-09-01 DOI:10.1017/S0007087421000297
Samantha Wesner
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Abstract

The 1790 Fête de la fédération in the early French Revolution evoked the memory of the taking of the Bastille while tamping down on the simmering social forces that had erupted on 14 July 1789. How to do both? As an official architect put it, through the festival, 'the sentiment of each becomes the sentiment of all by a kind of electrification, against which even the most perverse men cannot defend themselves'. This paper argues that a new language of revolutionary electricity came into being with the French Revolution. It argues that revolutionaries drew upon concepts of medical electricity developed in the 1780s to analogize the literal electricity of the ether to the revolutionary electricity of collective political sentiment. Though historians have associated electricity with radical politics, this paper argues that in the hands of bureaucrats and festival planners, electricity entered revolutionary discourse as a powerful mechanism for exercising authority and control over an unruly revolutionary public.

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1790年的革命电力:震惊、共识和政治隐喻的诞生。
1790年,法国大革命初期的Fête de la fsamdassim唤起了人们对攻占巴士底狱的记忆,同时镇压了1789年7月14日爆发的酝酿中的社会力量。如何两者兼得?正如一位官方建筑师所说,通过这个节日,“每个人的情感通过一种电气化变成了所有人的情感,即使是最乖愎的人也无法为自己辩护”。本文认为,一种新的革命电学语言是随着法国大革命而产生的。它认为革命者借鉴了18世纪80年代发展起来的医疗电的概念,将以太的字面电类比为集体政治情感的革命电。虽然历史学家将电力与激进政治联系在一起,但本文认为,在官僚和节日策划者的手中,电力作为一种强大的机制进入了革命话语,用于行使权威和控制不守纪律的革命公众。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.80
自引率
12.50%
发文量
59
期刊介绍: This leading international journal publishes scholarly papers and review articles on all aspects of the history of science. History of science is interpreted widely to include medicine, technology and social studies of science. BJHS papers make important and lively contributions to scholarship and the journal has been an essential library resource for more than thirty years. It is also used extensively by historians and scholars in related fields. A substantial book review section is a central feature. There are four issues a year, comprising an annual volume of over 600 pages. Published for the British Society for the History of Science
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