Self-fashioning in the Eighteenth Century. A Brief Historiographical Introduction

In this special issue, two social historians, two historians of political culture, and two literary historians have engaged in an exploration of the relevance of Stephen Greenblatt’s concept of self-fashioning for their own research into the history and culture of the Dutch eighteenth century. In recent years, the concept of self-fashioning has been particularly influential in eighteenth-century historical research. This introduction gives a brief overview of the research areas in which the concept has attracted most attention and provides some representative examples of recent scholarship.