Reviews for Exoticism in the enlightenment

The average rating for Exoticism in the enlightenment based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-12-11 00:00:00 Brad Simons I took me a long time to finish this book. I was interested in her account of 18th century French medical vitalism. She does a beautiful job of this in the early chapters of the book. The second half of the book is a discussion of various literary works, by Diderot, Rousseau, Laclos, Sade etc, that relate to vitalism. These were intimidating for me as I had not read the novels she discusses. The key concept is, as stated in the title, sensibility. Most people have heard of sensibility as a cultural and literary notion, but Vila shows that there was a medical discourse that ran along side of this. I think a reader would need a rather specific interest and background to find this book helpful. Of the chapters on literature, I thought the one on Rousseau was particularly healthy. She describes a 'therapy' that occurs in Julle that fits nicely in my work on understanding the origins of psychological thinking in the 18th century.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-01-07 00:00:00 Michele Braun Really embarrassing.