Unreliable Witnesses

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Leedham-Green
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
Anecdotal Evidence ◽  
Historical Contingency ◽  
Religious Conservatism ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University ◽  
Biblical Translation

Innovation in print and the dissemination of reformation texts were as central to Protestant reform as biblical translation and the circulation of erudite Protestant scholarship in manuscript. The history of the book is an obvious starting point for understanding reformation reception and overlaps with reception studies by its concern with readership and the historical context of printed matter. This chapter explores the historical contingency of the sources available for quantifying the ownership of continental reformed texts, with particular emphasis on the universities in Britain. Probate inventories, anecdotal evidence, booksellers’ lists, and surviving books present different and often conflicting stories. The discrepancy between Cambridge and Oxford inventories, for instance, may have had more to do with the university appraisers than religious conservatism in Oxford.

scholarly journals Black Cat Bone: the Life of Blues Legend Robert Johnson by J. P. Lewis

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Sivak
Keyword(s):  
Elementary Education ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Older Children ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
Library And Information Studies ◽  
Poetic Text ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University

Lewis, J. P. Black Cat Bone: the Life of Blues Legend Robert Johnson. Illus. Gary Kelley. Mankato: Creative Editions, 2006. Print.Although this book is designed as a large-format picture book, Black Cat Bone is more likely to appeal to older children (middle school and adolescents) as a poetic text, with its rich illustrations and unusual narrative flow. The foreword of the book addresses a reader who knows some about blues musicians, as well as has some hint of the history of blues music in the United States. The language of the text is not trying to tell a linear story, but to be more evocative of a time, and of some of the historical context. The book actually has several texts: the address of the historical context that bookends the work, the bluesy poems which make up the majority of the text, excerpts from Johnson's own lyrics, and a footer running throughout the book, which provides aphoristic summaries of Johnson's story: “He was destined for legend not a field hand's work.” Each text tells a part of the interpretation of Johnson's story. With the images, it adds up to a faceted narrative of the man and his musical legacy. The illustrations alternate between impressionistic pastels in deep dark colours, reinforcing the air of mystery around Johnson's life as understood by popular culture. Kelley's other illustrative style is reminiscent of Indonesian shadow-puppets, dramatic and exaggerated in their execution. A particularly lovely example is show in full on the cover, a depiction of Johnson and the devil facing each other, each with a hand on the guitar. This image is reproduced in the text, split by the page turn in a clever design turn. Recommended: 3 stars out of 4Reviewer: Allison SivakAllison Sivak is the Assessment Librarian at the University of Alberta Libraries. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Library and Information Studies and Elementary Education, focusing on how the aesthetics of information design influence young people’s trust in the credibility of information content.

scholarly journals A Parapsychologist, an Anthropologist, and a Vitalist Walk into a Laboratory: Ernesto de Martino, Mircea Eliade, and a Forgotten Chapter in the Disciplinary History of Religious Studies

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 304
Author(s):  
Flavio A. Geisshuesler
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Western World ◽  
Mircea Eliade ◽  
Program Of Study ◽  
Disciplinary History ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Clifford Geertz ◽  
History Of

While the work of the Italian historian of religion, Ernesto de Martino (1908–1965), has frequently been compared to that of Mircea Eliade, Claude Lévi-Strauss, or Clifford Geertz, he has hardly received any attention in anglophone scholarship to date. Taking an all-but-forgotten controversy between de Martino and Eliade at a conference on parapsychology in France in 1956 as its starting point, the article fills part of this lacuna by first reconstructing the philosophical universe underlying the Italian thinker’s program of study. In the process, it introduces the reader to three Weimar scientists, who have never before been inserted within the canon of the study of religion, namely the parapsychologist Albert von Schrenck-Notzing (1862–1929), the anthropologist Leo Frobenius (1873–1938), and the biologist and philosopher Hans Driesch (1867–1941). Contextualizing these thinkers within their historical context, it becomes clear that they were part of a larger scientific crisis that affected the Western world during the first half of the twentieth century. Finally, the article uncovers surprising affinities, particularly the fact that the Romanian thinker had his very own parapsychological phase during his youth.

The protean nature of Stanford University's biological sciences, 1946––1972

2004 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
ERIC J. VETTEL
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Biological Research ◽  
World War ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fundamental Research

ABSTRACT: Academic literature has paid scant attention to the biological sciences at Stanford University, an omission all the more conspicuous considering their productivity since World War II. This article draws on previously unused archival material to establish a starting point for further study of the biological sciences at Stanford. It traces the evolution of Stanford's biological sciences through three experimental fields: self-directed developmental and evolutionary studies; fundamental research at the molecular level; and biomedical applications of fundamental knowledge. Taken together, a history of Stanford's biological sciences offers a remarkably fertile example of organizational flexibility in historical context. This essay ends by suggesting that a fourth phase of biological research at Stanford will be governed by commercial interest in biology.

Introduction: Scottish Colonial Literature, 1603–1707

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Kirsten Sandrock
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Colonial Literature ◽  
Utopian Literature ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Atlantic Literature

This chapter establishes the book's key claim that Scottish colonial literature in the seventeenth century is poised between narratives of possession and dispossession. It introduces the term colonial utopian literature to frame the intricate relationship between colonialism and utopianism in the seventeenth century. The chapter uses the instances of book burnings in Edinburgh and London in 1700 that revolved around Scotland's colonial venture in Darien as a starting point for the discussion to make a case for the centrality of literary texts in the history of Scottish colonialism. In addition, it introduces the historical context of seventeenth-century Scottish colonialism, especially in relation to the emergent British Empire, inner-British power dynamics, and other European imperial projects. On a theoretical level, the chapter enters debates about Scotland's position in colonial and postcolonial studies through its focus on pre-1707 Atlantic literature. It also makes a fresh argument about Atlantic writing contributing to the transformation of utopian literature from a fictional towards a reformist genre.

The Return to Diversity in Eastern Europe

1993 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100
Author(s):  
Jens Hohensee
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
New Research ◽  
Annus Mirabilis

The events of 1989, the annus mirabilis, have led to a great demand for new research and a re-thinking of the history of Eastern Europe. Those sources which were kept from us for years are now available, at least in part. As part of this process political scientists and historians of Eastern Europe are now concerned to fill in the gaps in our knowledge and provide the answers to urgent questions. A consequence of this situation has been a veritable flood of publications, of which eight have been chosen for review here. With two exceptions these studies have deepened our understanding of the issues involved. There are clear differences between the historians on the one hand and the political scientists on the other in terms of their starting-point and the questions they ask. Whereas the historians deal descriptively with the origins, trends and structures of the last centuries and place the revolutions of 1989/90 in their historical context, the political scientists proceed analytically and place greater emphasis on social, ethnic and economic factors. This dichotomy is demonstrated in the different problematics of the books under review.

scholarly journals “I want to find real readers, discover their responses to books and their reading practices”. The story of printed production by Martyn Lyons

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-133
Author(s):  
Nathanael Araújo ◽  
Ana Paula da Costa
Keyword(s):  
History Of The Book ◽  
Book Reading ◽  
French History ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
South Wales ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
The University

Martyn Lyons is an Emeritus Professor of European History and Studies at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Specialist in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, his main research interests are the history of the book, reading and writing, French history and Australian history. He published around sixteen books with the results of his work and gave us this interview at the Third Argentine Colloquium on Book and Edition Studies (CAELE), held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from November 7 to 9, 2018. As a guest of honor, he presented the opening speech of the event entitled "The century of the typewriter. How the typewriter influenced writing practices" and generously, he agreed to give this interview to two young researchers in the field of publishing, book and reading in Brazil.

Claire Angotti, Gilbert Fournier, and Donatella Nebbiai (eds.), Les livres des maîtres de Sorbonne: histoire et rayonnement du collège et de ses bibliothèques du XIIIe siècle à la Renaissance (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2017). ISBN 978-2-85944-993-3.

2020 ◽  
pp. 219-220
Author(s):  
Thomas Sullivan OSB
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Annotated Bibliography ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
University Of Paris ◽  
The University

This chapter discusses Les livres des maîtres de Sorbonne (2017) by Claire Angotti, Gilbert Fournier, and Donatella Nebbiai. This volume presents nine studies dedicated to the medieval Collège de Sorbonne of the University of Paris, to its famous and well-documented library, and to the development and use of the library's collections, vis-à-vis both subject matter and reader. All authors are experts in their respective fields, and bring to the subject matter a wealth of information and insight. Two of the studies situate the college in the context of the university and its library in the context of the libraries of Paris' other secular colleges. Meanwhile, material found in the Sorbonne's collection became the focus of two articles: commentaries on the Nicomachian Ethics and vernacular texts available for use in the library. The volume concludes with two instruments de travail useful for those studying the history of the book and the history of library: a lengthy, detailed, codicological guide to the library's manuscripts and an exhaustive annotated bibliography dealing with studies of the Sorbonne Library published between 1838 and 2017.

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