See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil: Spectation and the Eighteenth-Century Public Sphere

This essay examines the observational and didactic behavior of the eidolons of The Spectator, The Auditor, and The Prater, concluding that such periodicals understand spectation as a practice that is far more than merely visual. Their means of acknowledging the full-bodied complexity of the art of the gaze in turn points to their vulnerability as disembodied voices of authority, and opens the possibility that subjects, particularly women, can always reject the authority of social and textual scrutiny.