A ‘milky mass’ and ‘uniform material’: white marble in eighteenth-century French discourses on sculpture and geology

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-225
Author(s):  
Marthe Kretzschmar
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Grain Size ◽  
Denis Diderot ◽  
Art Theory ◽  
White Marble ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Interdisciplinary Network

Knowledge of the materiality of stone during the Enlightenment expanded following the exploration of mineralogical structure, to alter ideas about taxonomy and challenge the role of rocks in the history of the earth. Close studies of the material of marble sculpture generated expertise on grain size, surface varieties and stone deposits. This mode of reception became intertwined with contemporary controversies about the age of the earth. This article focuses on both French sculpture and geological discourses of the eighteenth century to reveal an international and interdisciplinary network centring on protagonists such as Denis Diderot, Paul-Henri Thiry d’Holbach and Étienne-Maurice Falconet; through these figures, debates can be connected concerning both geology and art theory. Within these contexts, the article discusses the translation processes between these artistic and geological interests.

Knowledge From Underground: Leibniz Mines the Enlightenment

1997 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Hamm
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Administrative Work ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of Geology ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Mining Machinery ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Fantastic

The history of geology has focused largely on the foundations of geology in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Considerable attention has also been given to grand theories of the earth, or cosmogonies, of the seventeenth century. This approach has left out most of eighteenth-century mineralogy; it has also left out mining. The argument here is that Leibniz's Protogaea is best understood in the context of the Harz mines, where Leibniz spent considerable energy doing administrative work and inventing new mining machinery. By looking to the mines we not only make sense of Protogaea, but of most of German mineralogy in the eighteenth century. J. G. Lehmann, J. F. W. Charpentier, C. G. Delius and many other practitioners working in and around mines were deeply concerned with mapping the subterranean structure of the earth's crust and they contrasted their work with the "fantastic" world of theorists. The Freiberg Mining Academy, other institutions, and the way vocabularies of mining changed will also be considered. Finally there are some concluding thoughts on why mining has almost disappeared from the history of geology.

Tom Jones

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Fielding
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fourth Edition ◽  
Tom Jones ◽  
History Of

Fielding's comic masterpiece of 1749 was immediately attacked as `A motley history of bastardism, fornication, and adultery'. Indeed, his populous novel overflows with a marvellous assortment of prudes, whores, libertines, bumpkins, misanthropes, hypocrites, scoundrels, virgins, and all too fallible humanitarians. At the centre of one of the most ingenious plots in English fiction stands a hero whose actions were, in 1749, as shocking as they are funny today. Expelled from Mr Allworthy's country estate for his wild temper and sexual conquests, the good-hearted foundling Tom Jones loses his money, joins the army, and pursues his beloved across Britain to London, where he becomes a kept lover and confronts the possibility of incest. Tom Jones is rightly regarded as Fielding's greatest work, and one of the first and most influential of English novels. This carefully modernized edition is based on Fielding's emended fourth edition text and offers the most thorough notes, maps, and bibliography. The introduction uses the latest scholarship to examine how Tom Jones exemplifies the role of the novel in the emerging eighteenth-century public sphere.

‹ Rococo › : du jargon à la catégorie de style

2017 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 474-487
Author(s):  
Marie-Pauline Martin
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Louis Xvi ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Louis Xv ◽  
Objective Existence

Abstract Today there is a consensus on the definition of the term ‘rococo’: it designates a style both particular and homogeneous, artistically related to the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI. But we must not forget that in its primitive formulations, the rococo has no objective existence. As a witty, sneering, and impertinent word, it can adapt itself to the most varied discourses and needs, far beyond references to the eighteenth century. Its malleability guarantees its sparkling success in different languages, but also its highly contradictory uses. By tracing the genealogy of the word ‘rococo’, this article will show that the association of the term with the century of Louis XV is a form of historical discrimination that still prevails widely in the history of the art of the Enlightenment.

“Russian” Spengler and the Destiny of World History in Russian Philosophy in the Beginning of the 20th Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 115-128
Author(s):  
Vladimir A. Kudryavtsev ◽  
Alexandra I. Vakulinskaya
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Russian Philosophy ◽  
Cultural Revival ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Ideological Influence ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Factor ◽  
In The Beginning

This article deals with the history of Russian philosophers ‘acquaintance with the ideas of O. Spengler, set forth in his work “The Decline of the West”. The authors point out that the initial orientation of Russian thought towards Historiosophy, problems of history and ontology became the key factor of Spengler’s popularity in Russia. The article considers and analyzes critical and methodological approaches to the theory of cultural and historical types by O. Spengler and N. Ya. Danilevsky within the framework of Russian philosophical thought. The authors pay attention to the ideological influence of the United States as the country which adheres to the ideas of the Enlightenment, as well as to German thinkers, who visited this country in the early twentieth century. It is concluded that the global scenario of the human civilization development, that used to be the mainstream of its formation before the events of the beginning of this year, is unsuitable and untenable. The authors insist on the important role of the theory of cultural and historical types supported and developed by Russian emigration representatives, and focus on the importance of the religious factor in the process of cultural revival.

scholarly journals Using satellite images in teaching geography at school

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Satellite Images ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
Dust Storms ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Atmospheric Fronts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Memory Representations ◽  
Control Knowledge

Satellite images occupy a signifi cant place in the Earth Sciences. This fully applies to geography. Images of the Earth from space are used in various activities: to assess crops, to establish the boundaries of a phenomenon, to determine the degree of contamination of land or ocean surfaces, to search for minerals, and so on. But in school geography, satellite images are used very rarely - for example, to prove the sphericity of the Earth or to show the view of each continent from space. The purpose of this article is to highlight the methods of using satellite images in geography lessons at school and to create tasks based on these means of training. Main material. The history of using satellite images in school geography has been considered in the article. Advantages and disadvantages of satellite images as training tools are also noted. The role of satellite images in the formation of geographical representations is highlighted by the authors. These images realistically depict many natural phenomena (atmospheric fronts, cyclones, dust storms, etc.). Therefore, as a means of visualization, they contribute to the formation of memory representations in schoolchildren. Examples of a number of satellite images show how they can be used in teaching geography. The article off ers a methodical way of the use of satellite images at diff erent stages of learning. These images can be used to explain the training material, repeat it, control knowledge, and so on. Satellite images can be used to solve cartographic tasks. As practice has shown, we can perform creative tasks based on images. Conclusions. Satellite images play an important role in the system of teaching geography. The use of satellite images allows us to improve the pupils’ interest in the subject. Satellite images form geographical memory representations create a visual image of the natural appearance of the Earth. The study of educational opportunities of the Earth’s images from space has revealed three groups of requirements: pedagogical, technical and specific, determined by the content of school geography. The teacher should select satellite images based on the content of educational tasks of school geography.

Geopolitics of Comparison: World Literature Avant la Lettre

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-269
Author(s):  
Waïl S. Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Literature ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
History Of

Abstract According to a well-known narrative, the concept of Weltliteratur and its academic correlative, the discipline of comparative literature, originated in Germany and France in the early nineteenth century, influenced by the spread of scientism and nationalism. But there is another genesis story that begins in the late eighteenth century in Spain and Italy, countries with histories entangled with the Arab presence in Europe during the medieval period. Emphasizing the role of Arabic in the formation of European literatures, Juan Andrés wrote the first comparative history of “all literature,” before the concepts of Weltliteratur and comparative literature gained currency. The divergence of the two genesis stories is the result of competing geopolitical interests, which determine which literatures enter into the sphere of comparison, on what terms, within which paradigms, and under what ideological and discursive conditions.

Projecting the Enlightenment

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wokler ◽  
Christopher Brooke
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Intellectual Tradition ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Enlightenment Project ◽  
History Of

This chapter retraces Alasdair MacIntyre's own construal of the Enlightenment Project's trajectory in order to show how his interpretation of an intellectual tradition depends above all on his assessment of its impact. It argues that MacIntyre's Enlightenment Project is largely unreconstructed, unredeemed, and undiminished in its failure, even after substantial embellishment. His three principal works comprise an extraordinary indictment of the theoretical and practical legacy of eighteenth-century philosophy. His account projects the Enlightenment's implications and influence as they stem from its aims. He holds it to blame for some of the most sinister aspects of a morally vacuous civilization, cursed by the malediction of unlicenced Reason. His intellectual history of the period forms one of the mainsprings of his own philosophy.

Negligence

2019 ◽  
pp. 427-450
Author(s):  
John Baker
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
General Principle ◽  
Duty Of Care ◽  
Reasonable Care ◽  
History Of

This chapter traces the history of negligence in tort. The role of fault in the action of trespass vi et armis is somewhat speculative, since the relevant facts were hidden from courts by the plea of Not Guilty. But the concept of inevitable accident seems to be predicated on negligence. Negligence is more visible in actions on the case, though the earliest examples were contractual in essence. The first signs of a distinct tort of negligence, where there was no contract or custom imposing liability, appear in the seventeenth century, and in the next century there emerges a general principle that everyone must take reasonable care not to injure his neighbour. The duty of care was gradually enlarged between the eighteenth century and the present, especially with the removal of obstacles connected with the principle volenti non fit injuria and with the old notion that trespass would not lie for words.

scholarly journals The Role of Observation With Horizontal Meridian Circle in China for Establishing an Inertial Frame

1990 ◽  
Vol 141 ◽  
pp. 142-142
Author(s):  
Li Zhi-gang ◽  
Qi Guan-Rong
Keyword(s):  
Inertial Frame ◽  
Minor Planets ◽  
Meridian Circle ◽  
Horizontal Meridian ◽  
Proper Motions ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Radio Stars

While HIPPARCOS is expected to measure positions and proper motions with more accuracy than those obtained by ground-based instruments, what can we do in the future for ground-based instruments? The observations with them still are important for establishing an inertial frame because of the long history of observations with them and improvements in the instruments. Moreover, it is necessary to have data of observations from them for research on problems related to the Earth. The horizontal meridian circle in China (DCMT) is expected to have advantage over the classical meridian circles. The DCMT will be assembled and tested this year. It should work in the following fields: (1) observing radio stars, (2) observation of minor planets, (3) absolute determinations of IRS.

The Conditions in Jewish Society in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Middle Decades of the Eighteenth Century

1996 ◽  
pp. 45-50
Author(s):  
Gershon David Hundert
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Generational Conflict ◽  
East European ◽  
Explanatory Factors ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

This chapter investigates the conditions in Jewish society in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the middle decades of the eighteenth century. The place of hasidism in the religious history of the eighteenth century ought to be reconsidered not only in light of the questions about the schismatic groups in the Orthodox Church raised by Ysander, but also in light of the general revivalist currents in western Europe. The social historian cannot explain hasidism, which belongs to the context of the development of the east European religious mentality in the eighteenth century. Social history does, however, point to some significant questions that ought to be explored further. One of these is the role of youth and generational conflict in the beginnings of the movement, and not only in its beginnings. A realistic recovery of the situation of the Polish-Lithuanian Jewry in the eighteenth century shows that neither the economic nor the security conditions were such as to warrant their use as causal or explanatory factors in the rise and reception of hasidism.

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