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	Some paper topics
	Money, debt, credit, & the marketplace In the late 17th and 18th centuries, writers started to earn enough money from their writing to support themselves. Aphra Behn and Alexander Pope are prominent in this respect. There were many metaphors for the relation of writer to writing, but “children of the mind” was prominent (with the term plagiarism meaning originally kidnapping). In the course of the century, the idea of intellectual property developed, and writers’ relation to their writing was understood as ownership of property, a metaphor that could cohabit with previous metaphors (and to a large extent displace the view that wits are just like whores). Many 18th-century novels centralize financial transactions and economic relationships. Correspondingly, many studies emphasize money, debt, credit, and the marketplace (e.g., Catherine Gallagher’s Nobody’s Story: The Vanishing Acts of Women Writers in the Marketplace and Sandra Sherman’s Finance and Fictionality in the Early Eighteenth Century: Accounting for Defoe), and many pay close attention to women writers (e.g., Gallaher and Edward Copeland’s Women Writing about Money: Women's Fiction in England, 1790-1820). Burney’s work has received ample attention, though Camilla more than Cecilia. Questions: What is at stake in the financial arrangements and transactions in Cecilia? When do you “see” money or other financial instruments moving from one hand to another? In how many instances are relationships defined economically? What kinds of opposition are set up through these economic relations? What kinds of anxieties are attached to these relations or transactions? What does money, debt, or credit intersect with? Multiply these questions and try to come to terms with the historical, symbolic, or semiotic value of money in the novel.

Some paper topics

Money, debt, credit, & the marketplace

In the late 17th and 18th centuries, writers started to earn enough money from their writing to support themselves. Aphra Behn and Alexander Pope are prominent in this respect. There were many metaphors for the relation of writer to writing, but “children of the mind” was prominent (with the term plagiarism meaning originally kidnapping). In the course of the century, the idea of intellectual property developed, and writers’ relation to their writing was understood as ownership of property, a metaphor that could cohabit with previous metaphors (and to a large extent displace the view that wits are just like whores). Many 18th-century novels centralize financial transactions and economic relationships. Correspondingly, many studies emphasize money, debt, credit, and the marketplace (e.g., Catherine Gallagher’s Nobody’s Story: The Vanishing Acts of Women Writers in the Marketplace and Sandra Sherman’s
Finance and Fictionality in the Early Eighteenth Century: Accounting for Defoe), and many pay close attention to women writers (e.g., Gallaher and Edward Copeland’s Women Writing about Money: Women's Fiction in England, 1790-1820). Burney’s work has received ample attention, though Camilla more than Cecilia.
Questions: What is at stake in the financial arrangements and transactions in Cecilia?

When do you “see” money or other financial instruments moving from one hand to another? In how many instances are relationships defined economically? What kinds of opposition are set up through these economic relations? What kinds of anxieties are attached to these relations or transactions? What does money, debt, or credit intersect with?

Multiply these questions and try to come to terms with the historical, symbolic, or semiotic value of money in the novel.