Bluestocking Feminism and British-German Cultural Transfer,
1750-1837 examines the processes of cultural transfer between
Britain and Germany during the Personal Union, the period from 1714
to 1837 when the kings of England were simultaneously Electors of
Hanover. While scholars have generally focused on the political and
diplomatic implications of the Personal Union, Alessa Johns offers
a new perspective by tracing sociocultural repercussions and
investigating how, in the period of the American and French
Revolutions, Britain and Germany generated distinct discourses of
liberty even though they were nonrevolutionary countries. British
and German reformists -- feminists in particular -- used the
period� expanded pathways of cultural transfer to generate new
discourses as well as to articulate new views of what personal
freedom, national character, and international interaction might
be. Johns traces four pivotal moments of cultural exchange: the
expansion of the book trade, the rage for translation, the effect
of revolution on intra-European travel and travel writing, and the
impact of transatlantic journeys on visions of reform. Johns
reveals the way in which what she terms 'bluestocking
transnationalism' spawned discourses of liberty and attempts at
sociocultural reform during this period of enormous economic
development, revolution, and war.
