The 18th Century Today
Literature and Media from Beauty and the Beast to Bridgerton
The 18th Century Today
Literature and Media from Beauty and the Beast to Bridgerton
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Description
Exploring how 18th-century forms and narrative are taken-up, recycled and re-visioned in contemporary media, this book asks which histories are told and by whom. Through essays from international and multidisciplinary scholars and interviews with industry professionals from curators and historians to actors, authors and producers, The 18th Century Now asks what function modern media performs when depicting the 18th century in our current world. Can such works speak to perceived eighteenth-century ideas and values and, simultaneously, the shifting paradigms of our own time? How, and why, should we engage?
Highlighting how contemporary depictions of the past give marginalised lives greater visibility, the role genre plays in re-enacting or re-interpreting 18th-century culture, and the potential for modern adaptation to transmute and transcend historical suffering, the essays in this volume dig into adaption across theatre, film, fiction, television and games. Covering works such as The Great, Bright Star, Harlots, Belle, Kind Words, Bridgerton, The Revolutionists, Beauty and the Beast and Black Sails among many others, this book is both reflection and celebration, an acknowledgement of the 18th century's momentous crimes alongside a sense of contemporary culture's capacity for transformation, renewal and justice.
Table of Contents
Emrys Jones (King's College London) and Madeleine Pelling (University of York)
Part One: New Relationships to Time and History
1. “Huzzah!”: Anachronism and the Weird Eighteenth Century in The Great, Stephanie Russo (Macquarie University)
2. 'Quality Time in the Life of Sensations', Carmen Faye Mathes (McGill University) and Marisa Grizenko (Independent)
Industry Interviews: Polly Putnam (Collections Curator, Historic Royal Palaces and Historical Consultant, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story); Anthony Delaney (Actor and author, Queer Georgians)
Part Two: Recuperating Experience
3. 'Back into existence': Remaking Black Enlightenment Lives, James Ward (Ulster University)
4. “Revolution and Sovereignty on the American Stage”, Laurie Arnold (Gonzaga University)
Industry Interviews: Charlotte Long (Podcast producer, History Hit Network), Serena Dyer (Historic Dress HIstorian, YouTuber and Presenter)
Part Three: Reworking Genre
5. 'Do Ladies Do That?' in 2021: Period Absurdism's New Queer Histories, Madeleine Saidenberg (University of Oxford)
6. “I'll have Belle for my wife, make no mistake about that”: Courtship and Coercion in Beauty and the Beast, Meghan K. Roberts (Bowdoin College)
7. Gaming the Letter: Affective Interfacing from Pamela (1741) to Kind Words (Lo Fi Chill Beats to Write to) (2019), Jack Orchard (University of Oxford)
8. “You are to be fitted for a new wardrobe”: Sartorial politics on screen and beyond in Netflix's Bridgerton, Elizabeth Spencer (University of York)
Industry Interview: Joanna Brown (author, as J. T. Williams of Lizzie and Belle Mysteries)
Part Four: Happy Endings
9. 'I come as his right hand': Imagining Pirate Disability, Prosthesis, and Interdependence in Black Sails, Alex Tankard (University of Chester)
10. "Playable Partners: Spectrums of Queer Possibility in Indie Video Games", Emily C. Friedman (Auburn University) and Emily M.N. Kugler (Howard University)
Biography
Index
Product details
| Published | Nov 27 2025 |
|---|---|
| Format | Hardback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 288 |
| ISBN | 9781350528871 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Dimensions | 9 x 6 inches |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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