The Translucence of the Medium: Interiors and Interiority in the Eighteenth-century Novel

CCS presents Sophie Volpp, University of California, Berkeley Professor Volpp examines the novel Honglou meng's representation of new technologies of interior illumination and decoration such as plate glass windows, full-length mirrors, and perspectival painting. She asks how the capacity of such new technologies to encourage play upon perception within domestic interiors might have inspired innovative means of representing interiority. The novel's exploration of new technologies of illumination, reflection and perspective allow the reader to reconsider the materiality of a medium of representation. Ultimately, these technologies serve the novel's concern with encouraging in the reader an elevated quality of perception that leads to a new apprehension of the fictional.