Bennet Gilbert

Biography and/or project

European intellectual history, esp. c. 1450 and c. 1700; the history of the book & print culture, esp. book illustration and binding; material culture in relation to ethics. Pre-modern techniques of image reproduction; the influence of idealist ontology; Rococo and pre-French Revolution culture.

As an historian I am interested in the historiographic relationship between intellectual history and material culture. As a philosopher I am interested in normative theory of thed relationship between notions of the good and life-experience. As an historian of the book I am interested in the spiritual, emotional, and intellectual bases of verbal communication.