Adapting to Discomfort: Lessons from Enlightenment Literature, 1660-1800

Grant Call: 2025 Social Science and Humanities Research Fellowship Call 

Project Status: Ongoing 

The project aims to examine how individuals from Britain living between 1660 and 1800 adapted to emotional discomfort and what modern day Singaporeans could learn from the strategies they employed. 

Through her project, Asst Prof Peh hopes to achieve the following objectives: 

• Understand how discomfort was understood in British literature from the 17^th to the 18^th century.  

• Refine existing theories of the emotions.  

• Develop a methodology for translating the insights from literary and historical research into practice. 

This project will excavate a forgotten literary history of discomfort in Britain from 1660 to 1800. These insights can help Singapore society reach towards strategies for how individuals might build friendships and bond with others unlike themselves to respond collectively to the opportunities and challenges of a changing world. Findings from the project may also serve as a useful blueprint for how a collaborative, engaged citizenry can be built from the ground-up.