Citizens Electric! Galvanized Bodies and Popular Sovereignty in the Revolutionary Francophone Atlantic
Friday, October 27th, 2023
| Date | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Friday, October 27, 2023 | 4:30PM - 6:30PM | Seminar Room 108N, This event took place in-person at Room 108N, North House, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, ON, M5S 3K7 |
Series
French History Seminar/Seminaire d'histoire de France
Description
In an era before the lightbulb, when electricity meant both Benjamin Franklin’s bottled lightning and the ethereal fluid that animated Luigi Galvani’s frog legs, what did electricity mean politically? Electricity became a metaphor for the power of revolutionary festivals, speeches, and events to "shock" an audience, producing overpowering collective sentiment in an instant. Electrified citizens, equal and united in sentiment, replaced the stratified body politic as a model of social cohesion. A new era required new metaphors, and this talk investigates how science and politics intersected to produce the new metaphor of revolutionary electricity.
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