The World in Venice: Print, the City and Early Modern Identity (review)

Christianity, a spirituality of dwelling critically in the world, is seen by some in late modernity to foster an otherworldly attitude, and thus to cultivate a spirituality at odds with modern identity. Especially in the wake of Nietzsche’s condemnation of Christianity on the grounds of its ascetic abandonment of the world, some have contended that Christianity may never have overcome its early conflict with Gnosticism. Hans Blumenberg’s Legitimacy of the Modern Age continues to be read widely. Critics of modernity often avoid confronting the book’s lengthy endorsement of modernity in light of his critique of Augustine’s critique of curiositas. A central aim of this essay is to complicate Blumenberg’s influential thesis about Augustine’s supposed repudiation of “theoretical curiosity” that funded early modern science and inaugurated the modern epoch of self-assertion.

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Defining Local Heritages in Preserving Modern Shanghai Architecture

Built Heritage ◽

10.1186/bf03545740 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (3) ◽

pp. 3-20 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yongyi Lu ◽

Yanning Li

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Collective Memory ◽

Historic Preservation ◽

Early Modern Period ◽

Historical Buildings ◽

Modern Period ◽

The World ◽

Political Resource ◽

The City ◽

Modern Shanghai

Abstract The notion that local heritage can be defined by the ‘collective memory’ of a city may be considered as being simplistic nowadays. Heritage is increasingly recognised as knowledge, a cultural product or even a political resource set within specific social circumstances. The local heritage underpins various ways of relating our past with our present and future, which are often much more complicated than we can imagine. The evolution of the conservation of Shanghai’s modern heritage architecture shows this complexity. By tracing more than 50 years’ progress in historic preservation, this paper shows how historical buildings from Shanghai’s early modern period were selected as urban heritage in the changing socio-political contexts of different time periods. Starting with how the first modern buildings were listed in a new Chinese narrative in the 1950s, this paper focuses on the great ideological changes and progress Shanghai achieved after China’s reform and opening policy since the 1980s. Emphasising the great significance of the establishment of local legislation for historic preservation as an extension of the national system, examples of the great enrichment of Shanghai’s local heritage are presented through multiple narratives and interpretations of Shanghai’s modern history. In a deeper observation of various practices and complicated contradictions, the historic preservation of Shanghai’s modern heritage architecture is shown to be a process of continuing to reconstruct the relationships between city and the State, the city and the world, as well as the city’s past, present and future in a pluralist society.

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Surat

Transregional Trade and Traders ◽

10.1093/oso/9780199490684.003.0009 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 218-238

Author(s):

Martha Chaiklin

Keyword(s):

Eighteenth Century ◽

Indian Ocean ◽

Early Modern ◽

Early Modern Period ◽

Port City ◽

Modern Period ◽

The World ◽

The Indian Ocean ◽

Indian Ocean World ◽

The City

In the eighteenth century, Surat was perhaps the single most important port city of the Moghul empire, if not the world. Dutch, English, French, and Portuguese ships were called from Africa and Brazil to obtain Gujarati textiles, side by side with dhows from the throughout the Indian Ocean. This textile trade was underpinned by ivory, large amounts of which poured in the city both by caravan and by sea. Even though Surat, or even Gujarat, was not elephant habitat in the early modern period, Surat became a significant port for the import of ivory into India. The need for tusks of an appropriate size for bangles created symbiosis of trade between Gujarati textiles and ivory that directly affected the prosperity of Surat. The chapter thus links Surat to the Indian Ocean World through ivory and demonstrate the interconnected nature of ivory and textiles in the Gujarat region.

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Venice, print, and the early modern icon

Urban History ◽

10.1017/s0963926806003518 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 33 (1) ◽

pp. 39-64 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

BRONWEN WILSON

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

Local Market ◽

Urban Identity ◽

Modes Of Representation ◽

The World ◽

Physical Organization ◽

The City

Venetian printmakers in the sixteenth century were enthusiastic participants in what became a project of civic self-promotion as they looked beyond the local market to an international one. In response to the fascination of foreigners who marvelled at the city's singular topography and its reputation for liberty and licentiousness, the bird's-eye view and images of local social types – such as the doge and courtesan – became transmuted into icons of the city's urban identity. The medium and modes of representation used to reproduce the republic's social and physical organization on paper are crucial here, for it was the repetition and sedimentation of visual conventions that forged iconicity. Venice was redefined as a centre in which all the world could be seen. And the mechanisms for this redefinition, as this article argues, emerged, in part, out of print, for it was because the city could be seen from the eye of a bird, on paper as an image, by foreigners – that it could be re-envisioned from the outside in.

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