‘In the tents of the King as well as the Muses’

Chapter 1, ‘In the tents of the King as well as the Muses: The life and reputation of Thomas Willis’, starts with the reaction to Willis’s death, aged 54, in 1675. From there, an account is given of Willis’s childhood and education in Oxford and his activities supporting the Royalist cause during the Civil War. After training in medicine, Willis’s casebook, involvement with the Oxford Experimental Philosophical Club and the episode of Anne Greene, spared from dissection through resuscitation after judicial hanging, and his lectures as Sedleian professor of Natural Philosophy in Oxford, are described. After moving to London in 1667, Willis was in demand as a physician and involved with the other Fellows of the Royal Society in reshaping ideas on respiration, fermentation, and muscular movement. The chapter ends with an analysis of the consolidation of Willis’s reputation as a major figure in the history of medicine.{146 words}

The origins of the negative historical representations of burghers in Hungary

Hungarian historiography needs to review its negative representation of towns and burghers typical of the first half of nineteenth-century Hungary, as Vera Bácskai, a major figure of Hungarian urban history suggested in a paradigmatic paper. Starting from her statements, this article examines the historical narratives of secondary school textbooks and wider historical syntheses of Hungarian history published in the age of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918). The author shows that the burghers’ negative image was rooted in the political fights prior to the 1848 Revolution and the emergence of modern nationalism.

In memoriam: Albert Somit, PhD

Dr. Albert Somit recently died at 100 years of age. He was a major figure in the development of biopolitics. This essay reflects on his career and his role in helping others in advancing the study of politics and the life sciences.

Peter Michael Neumann OBE

Peter Neumann was a major figure in UK mathematics during a career spanning over 50 years. His parents, Bernhard and Hanna Neumann, were group theorists, so it was perhaps inevitable that Peter would become a specialist in the same area. A notable occurrence, and a sign of things to come, was the publication in 1962 of a joint paper with his parents which gave rise to the concept of an NNN group. There can be few instances in mathematics of three members of the same family co-authoring a paper. His parents spent many years in Australia and Peter maintained strong links with that country throughout his own professional life.

POETRY OF VELIMIR KHLEBNIKOV IN THE WORKS OF THE BAND “AUKTYON”. ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE ALBUM “ZHILETS VERSHIN”

The article establishes and for the first time describes in detail the dialogue relationship of the Leningrad rock band “Auktyon” and the avantgarde poet Aleksei Khvostenko (1940–2004) with the poetic heritage of Velimir Khlebnikov (1885–1922). The author notes the closeness of the poetry of a major figure of the Russian avant-garde of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries with the poets and musicians of the underground of the second half of the 20th century. The research is based on the analysis of the reception of Velimir Khlebnikov’s poetry in the album “Zhilets vershin” (The summits dweller) (1995). The author defines the levels of the poetic dialogue of rock musicians with the work of the futurist and describes the structural and informative changes that the original texts have undergone in comparison with their existence in the musical creativity of the band “Auktyon”. The formation of the album in rock culture determines the specifics of the dialogue, mainly it is the correlation of the texts of other poets in the album and their transformation. The group of Khlebnikov’s lyrical works, which were selected and reworked by Khvostenko for the album, are considered from the point of view of their chronological sequence and the deployment of the lyrical plot. The author identifies the changes that the original texts have undergone and analyzed such cycle-forming connections of the album “Zhilets vershin” as the composition, title and chronotope.

Wędrówki młodego Caspara Davida Friedricha. Rugia

The article looks at the context in which young Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) developed his interest in the landscape of the Island of Rügen and the effects of this setting on the drawings the artist produced during his wanderings there. This article positions itself against the current scholarship which assumes that Friedrich’s fascination with Rügen had formed before the artist moved to Copenhagen to study at the Fine Arts Academy. Instead, this article shifts Friedrich’s attraction to the island forward, to his time in Copenhagen. The city was then the centre of European research into Ossian’s poetry and the Nordic past. The author points to the significance of the Island of Møn, popularized by Søren Abildgaard, whose son, Nicolai, Professor of Art at the Copenhagen Academy was one of the most active exponents of the cult of Ossian in Denmark. Another major figure connected with the Island of Møn was the poet and clergyman Christen Andersen Lund, promoter of English literature. The popularity of Rügen as a destination grew precisely at the time when Friedrich returned from Copenhagen to his native Greifswald. One of the major champions of the island’s beauties was Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten, pastor at the Rügen Altenkirchen and at the same time a close friend of Friedrich’s first drawing teacher in Greifswald Johann Gottfried Quistorp. Friedrich’s first three excursions to Rügen in 1801–1802 resulted in many sketches of the island’s landscapes. These years are regarded here as seminal in the formation of the artist’s method. Already the sketches show the traits characteristic of his later oeuvre, and especially the mathematical structure of the composition. We need to remember that Quistorp was principally educated as a mathematician, a builder, and a land surveyor. Copenhagen at the time of Friedrich’s studies was one of the European centres of cartography, and the courses in mathematics, geometry, and perspective were considered of special importance at the Academy. This article focuses on four drawings made by Friedrich during his trips to Rügen. The author points to their mathematical precision and interprets the drawings in the context of cartographic practices, as well as in the light of old treatises on perspective. Special consideration is given to the method of laying out a grid on paper before making the actual sketch.

Hip-Hop Goes to College

North Carolina has always had a solid hip-hop scene, even if the state’s “Cackalacka” nickname has been synonymous with “rural rube” ever since the Queens trio A Tribe Called Quest’s 1991 song “Scenario” (“New York, North Cackalacka and Compton…”). Rap hit-makers to emerge from North Carolina in the 1990s include Sanford’s Black Sheep, of “The Choice Is Yours” fame; and Lords of the Underground, a trio that formed at Raleigh’s Shaw University. In 2001, the year that Petey Pablo hit it big with the North Carolina hit anthem “Raise Up,” Little Brother formed at Durham’s NC Central University. Little Brother was proudly old-school in sound as well as outlook, a throwback to the Tar Heel state’s soul-era glory days, and the group had a good run before winding down around 2010. Little Brother producer/deejay 9th Wonder (Patrick Douthit) has emerged as a major figure in college classrooms.

Isaiah and the Neo-Babylonian Background

This chapter opens with some remarks on prophecy and international politics inspired by a reading of Max Weber’s Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft; this is apropos of the abundance of polemic against foreign powers, in the first place Babylonia, in Isaiah and other prophetic texts. Babylon is the major figure in the sequence of ten oracles in Isa 1–23. Looking back over these oracles we would want to ask questions: by whom and for whom were they written, and how were they circulated? Then the account in chapters 36–37 of the visit of envoys sent by Merodach Baladan (Marduk-apla-idinna) to Hezekiah, now convalescentis discussed. Finally, the fall of Babylon and the dismantling of the Babylonian Empire lead to a discussion of theological politics involving Judaean, Babylonian, and Zoroastrian deities, with a focus on their respective roles as creation deities.

The Incipit of Beaches of Agnès (Les plages d’Agnès)

Agnès Varda’s recent death at 90 was received by various newspaper or site titles: “Influential French New Wave Filmmaker” (The New York Times), “Beloved French New Wave Director” (The Guardian). Paying tribute to Agnès Varda by analyzing Beaches of Agnès, her 2006 autobiographical film, José Moure draws attention to the fact that it has the singular form of a narrated puzzle from which (the film itself intermingled with its “making of”) a new kind of documentary emerges. (Dominique Chateau, in chapter 14, completes the tribute by considering Varda’s forays into the world of contemporary art.) Through her most recent films, as well as her exhibitions, Agnès Varda can be considered a major figure in post-cinema.