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Noël-Antoine Pluche’s 'Le Spectacle de la nature ou Entretiens sur les particularités de l’histoire naturelle' (1732-1742) as an instrument for the government of bodies
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Wallmann, Elisabeth (2018) Noël-Antoine Pluche’s 'Le Spectacle de la nature ou Entretiens sur les particularités de l’histoire naturelle' (1732-1742) as an instrument for the government of bodies. French Studies, 72 (3). pp. 364-379. doi:10.1093/fs/kny147
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/kny147
Abstract
This article reads Noël-Antoine Pluche’s best-seller Le Spectacle de la nature ou Entretiens sur les particularités de l’histoire naturelle (1732-1750) as a contribution to eighteenth-century theories of government. It contends that the Spectacle’s didactic as well as entertaining volumes on animals, building on and reenforcing the vogue for natural history among the eighteenth-century reading public, helped formulate and disseminate new ideas on how to increase France’s prosperity. Interpreting Pluche’s descriptions of animals in the light of Foucault’s claims about the emergence of ‘biopolitics’, this article argues that his natural histories of animals provided the Spectacle’s upper-class readers with tools for rendering the bodies of those lower down the social hierarchy as productive as possible without external coercion and thus for contributing to the country’s political economy by exercising their management functions. Through the interpretation of several examples from Pluche’s bestiary of hard-working animals, it shows how descriptions of animals were used as an instrument for reconstructing and disseminating the concept of ‘work’. The essay thus provides an account of the intertwining of natural history, political economy and the shaping of the individual in the first half of the eighteenth century.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory | ||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > French Studies Faculty of Arts > School of Modern Languages and Cultures |
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| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Economics -- France -- 18th century, Pluche, Noël Antoine, 1688-1761 -- Le Spectacle de la nature ou Entretiens sur les particularités de l’histoire naturelle | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | French Studies | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 0016-1128 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | 1 July 2018 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Date of first compliant deposit: | 8 May 2018 | ||||||||
| Volume: | 72 | ||||||||
| Number: | 3 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 364-379 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1093/fs/kny147 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Publisher Statement: | This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in French Studies following peer review. The version of record Elisabeth Wallmann; Noël-Antoine Pluche’s Le Spectacle de la nature, ou, Entretiens sur les particularitÉs de l’histoire naturelle as an Instrument for the Government of Bodies, French Studies, Volume 72, Issue 3, 1 July 2018, Pages 364–379, is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/kny147 | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
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