scholarly journals The pharmakon of ‘If’: working with Steven Shapin's A Social History of Truth

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 487-514
Author(s):  
MICHAEL WINTROUB
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Local Culture ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
The Social ◽  
Heuristic Strategy ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Strategy I

AbstractWhilst the ‘local culture’ of experimental natural philosophy in seventeenth-century England drew on ‘resources’ supplied by the gentlemanly identity of men like Robert Boyle, this culture found much of its distinctiveness in a series of exclusions having to do with faith, gender and class. My concern in this essay is less with these exclusions, and the distinctions they enabled, than with their surreptitious returns. Following from this, as a heuristic strategy, I will try to understand how Boyle and Co. used and reacted to, repressed and cathected, that which they sought to exclude. By charting the movements of exile and return across the contested frontiers of class, gender and faith, truth and lies, authenticity and performance, we can, I believe, fruitfully complicate our understandings of both the social history of truth, and the social history of our ‘post-truth’ predicament.

Introduction

Kick It ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Matt Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Performance Practice ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Creative Artists

This chapter explains the motivations for researching the social history of the drum kit. It traces the history of drummer jokes and outlines the structure of the chapters to follow. Chapter 1 traces the racist roots of linking drummers to primitive stereotypes and contrasts this against the cleverness of drummers that culminated in the invention of the drum. Chapter 2 shows how drummers in fact contributed to redefining the boundaries between noise and music. Chapter 3 reveals how drummers developed new conventions of literacy while standardizing both the components and performance practice of their instrument. Chapter 4 examines the development of the status of drummers as creative artists. Chapter 5 looks at drumming as a form of musical labour. Chapter 6 considers attempts to replace the drum kit and drummers with new technologies, and how such efforts ultimately underscored the centrality of the drum kit as part of the contemporary soundscape.

The Chronology of Galen's Early Career

1973 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian Nutton
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
Scientific Thought ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Psychology And Medicine

The last decade has witnessed a widespread resurgence of interest in Galen of Pergamum that is without parallel since the early seventeenth century. New studies of Galen's concepts of psychology and medicine have examined afresh his position in the development of scientific thought, and historians have begun to realize the wealth of material for the social history of the Antonine Age that he provides. But, despite the earlier labours of Ilberg and Bardong to restore a chronological order to the many tracts that flowed readily from his pen, many of the events of his life still lack the precise dates that would enable even more valuable information to be extracted, especially upon the careers of his friends.

The Perraults

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oded Rabinovitch
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
French Language ◽  
Kinship Networks ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Family Strategies

Through the story of the Perraults, a family of literary and scientific authors active in seventeenth-century Paris, the book argues that kinship networks played a crucial yet unexamined role in shaping the cultural and intellectual ferment of seventeenth-century France, while showing how culture in its turn shaped kinship and the social history of the family. The book examines the world of letters as means of social mobility and revises our understanding of prominent early modern institutions, such as the Academy of Sciences, Versailles, and the salons, as well as authorship and court capitalism. Put together, this project serves as a catalyst for rethinking early modern cultural and intellectual institutions more broadly. In this view, institutions no longer appear as rigid entities that embody or define intellectual or literary styles, such as “Cartesianism,” “empiricism” or “the purity of the French language.” Rather, they emerge as nodes that connect actors, intellectual projects, family strategies and practices of writing, thereby reframing their relation to the state.

The Sodhi kings in the Kaliyuga: The genealogy of the Sikh Gurus in the Bachitar Natak

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hardip Singh Syan
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
Islamic Fundamentalism ◽  
Contemporary Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

In the late seventeenth century Mughal India, Guru Gobind Singh and his Sikh army became politically and militarily opposed to the policies of Emperor Aurangzeb in the Punjab country. The Sikhs were not unique in this regard as across Aurangzeb’s Empire credible insurgencies began undermining Mughal authority. While an earlier historiography of this era reasoned that such revolts were caused by Aurangzeb’s abandonment of secularism for Islamic fundamentalism, contemporary research has provided a more nuanced analysis by exploring the history and ideas of the rebels. In this article, I explore how the Sikh community engaged in a dialogue on Kshatriyahood which was both specific to the Punjab country and similar to dialogues found across Mughal India. In addition, my article explores the social history of caste in medieval and early modern Punjab and the contested identities of Kshatriyahood and Brahminhood.

The Baronetcy of the Skellingthorpe Vavasor

1985 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-312
Author(s):  
Kenneth E. Cutler
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Social History ◽  
Charles I ◽  
Interesting Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Made In

On 22 June 1631 the government of Charles I issued Letters Patent proclaiming Captain Sir Charles Vavasor of Skellingthorpe, Lines., a baronet. The grant of honors to Sir Charles Vavasor was among the most distinctive made in England during the seventeenth century. By its special terms, Sir Charles became the first baronet (of approximately 285) to receive rights of precedence—in spite of parliamentary statutes opposing such rights. A clause of precedency declared the title retroactive to 29 June 1611, and that, in turn, made Sir Charles's father, Sir Thomas Vavasor, who had died in 1620, a baronet post mortem. The baronetcy of Sir Charles Vavasor is also unusual as one of the few which did not depend upon the patronage of the Duke of Buckingham, as the only one created during the whole of 1631, and as the last one created before the eve of Civil War.The competition for honors among the gentry is an important element in the social history of early seventeenth century England, and a factor in the complex origins of the Civil War. The full dimensions of that competition can be illuminated by studying the motives of individual families, and the processes by which they achieved their titles. The Skellingthorpe Vavasor make an especially interesting study because of the unusual distinctions which attend their title.Heretofore, however, paucity of evidence made it nearly impossible to reconstruct the quest for honors of the Skellingthorpe Vavasor. The evidence did show that before he died in 1620, Sir Thomas Vavasor sought the title of baronet without success, and that eleven years later, Sir Thomas's son, Charles, finally received a baronetcy with precedency. The intervening years, 1620-1631, had to be filled with conjectures about Charles Vavasor's motives, timing, and patronage, and also with some conjectures about why the government granted him honors of dubious legality.

scholarly journals Kitab Mir’at al-Ṭullāb dan Penerapan Fiqh Iṣlāḥ dalam Konflik Komunal pada Masa 'Abd al-Ra'ūf al-Sinkīlī

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-47
Author(s):  
Zainal Muttaqin
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The Political ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
The Social ◽  
Islamic Jurisprudence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Groups

The Mir’at al-Ṭullāb written by al-Sinkīlī in the seventeenth century apparently did not mention the requirement of being male to become a head of state (sultan). This is interesting because the Shāfi‘ī school of fiqh which is used as a reference actually mentions this condition. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the factors underlying it. Based on the literature studies and looking at the social history of the Acehnese people at that time, it can be found that the book was written when the Acehnese were polarized and there were conflicts between different religious and political groups. The conflict was very severe and was able to threaten the unity and power of the sultan at that time. The exclusion of being male as one of the requirements for public office (political authority or judge) is a manifestation of the application of Islamic jurisprudence by al-Sinkīlī which was introduced from the Qur’ān and the Sunnah so that it became legitimate (shar‘ī) while at the same time strengthening the position of the sultan, the idea of which was eventually able to reduce the political conflict in the community. 

Book Reviews: A theosophical Boyle?

1994 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-319
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Select Group ◽  
History Of ◽  
University Of Chicago Press

Robert Boyle Reconsidered . Edited by Michael Hunter. Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. xviii + 231, £30.00. ISBN 0-521-44205-2 The 300th anniversary of the death of Robert Boyle (1627-91) was commemorated by a select group of Boyle scholars in a symposium convened 14-16 December 1991 at the Horsington House Hotel, Somerset, during the course of what appears to have been a traditional Irish wake, ‘where participants were lavishly provided for through the generosity of the Foundation for Intellectual History’ (p. xvii). Twelve of the contributions presented at the symposium are published in Robert Boyle Reconsidered , and another contribution, ‘Who was Robert Boyle? The creation and presentation of an experimental self’ by Steven Shapin, appears as a chapter in his new book, A Social History of Truth: Gentility, Credibility, and Scientific Knowledge in Seventeenth Century England (University of Chicago Press, 1994).

But Are We Any Closer to Home?: Early Modern German Urban History SinceGerman Home Towns

1997 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Friedrichs
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
Urban History ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
German History ◽  
Home Town ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
German Cities

For a quarter of a century we have lived not in but with the “German home town.” For it was in 1971 that Mack Walker published his remarkable book,German Home Towns: Community, State and General Estate, 1648–1871. I well recall my own excitement when I first read this book, just as I was completing a dissertation on the social history of a German town in the seventeenth century. Not only wasGerman Home Townsoriginal and provocative, but it seemed by its very nature to validate the importance of studying early modern German cities. My own enthusiasm for this book has been echoedby that of numerous other historians, especially historians outside Germany itself. This is evident, for example, in James Sheehan's major survey of German history from 1770 to 1866, which repeatedly turns to Mack Walker—“the home towns' eloquent historian”—for the telling phrase or pregnant concept that best encapsulates some aspect of urban life or mentality. Walker's book is routinely cited in bibliographies as one of the most important works in the field.

scholarly journals Place, Performance and Identity in Monteverdi’s Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-188
Author(s):  
Antonio Cascelli
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Defining Relations ◽  
Performance Space ◽  
Identity And Agency ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance

AbstractWith its combination of gestures and music, instrumental sections, a narrator who occupies most of the composition, and two characters who sing for very short sections while acting and dancing for the rest of the piece, Monteverdi’s Combattimento defies genre definition. Starting from Tim Carter’s reading of the composition as a salon entertainment and responding to Suzanne Cusick’s call for the untangling of Combattimento’s multiplicity of meanings, this article investigates Combattimento in its ritualisation and performance of mutually defining relations that are mediated by the social and ideological implications of its immediate performance space, the salon – or portego, in Venetian dialect – the main entertainment hall of Venetian palaces. Using this as a key framework, the article explores the Combattimento’s associations with Venice itself as the broader performance space. Within that context, the choice of a particular episode from Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata for Monteverdi’s composition – with its mixture of love and violence, assimilation and confrontation, personal identity and agency, history of winners and history of victims1 – proves as crucial to seventeenth-century Venice, at the crossroads between Western and Islamic civilisations, as it does for today’s culture.

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