- Netherlands
eric jorink
Leiden University, Faculty of Humanities, LIAS, Department Member
- Leiden University, Institute for Humanities, Department MemberRoyal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, History of Science and Scholarship, Faculty Memberadd
- History of Science, History of Philosophy, History of Scholarship, Art History, Scientific Revolution, 17th Century Dutch Republic, and 12 moreCirculation of Knowledge, Cultural History, Social History, Early Modern History, Material Culture Studies, Architectural Theory, History of Ideas, Architecture, Cultural Studies, Archaeology, Geology, and Prehistoric Archaeologyedit
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In 1679, Hadrianus van Beverland wrote that the original sin by Adam and Eve was intercourse. In the same year, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek’s descriptions of spermatozoa were published. Both publications are believed to have excelled the... more
In 1679, Hadrianus van Beverland wrote that the original sin by Adam and Eve was intercourse. In the same year, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek’s descriptions of spermatozoa were published. Both publications are believed to have excelled the boundaries of decency. However, here I argue that already since 1660 a lively discourse at the Leiden medical faculty existed, focusing on the anatomy and functions of genitals, intercourse and lust. Far from being taboo, these themes were discussed in academic circles and the public realm, and visualized in prints, cabinets, and anatomical handbooks in the vernacular.
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Slashing Descartes On 18 January 1982, at the Royal Society in London, a member of the Animal Liberation Front slashed the society's portrait of René Descartes (1596-1650). Leaving the painting damaged, the culprit managed to escape, but... more
Slashing Descartes On 18 January 1982, at the Royal Society in London, a member of the Animal Liberation Front slashed the society's portrait of René Descartes (1596-1650). Leaving the painting damaged, the culprit managed to escape, but the point to be made by this iconoclastic act was clear. 1 Besides the Animal Liberation Front, many others, then as well as now, have pointed to Descartes as the advocate of a dualist separation between mind and matter, soul and body, and a consequent ontological distinction between humans and animals. 2 In his seminal essay 'Why look at animals' (1977), John Berger sketches a broad overview of human-animal relationships in human culture. 3 As Berger reminds us, the oldest remaining artifacts of human culture consist of images of animals. To humans, animals were at the same time sources of food, tangible connections to the spiritual world, company and perhaps even objects of care. During the subsequent millennia, this close, holistic, multifaceted relationship changed into a largely instrumental one. A highly urbanized and industrialized society started to consume animals as commodities, subdued them in public zoos, idealized them in children's books and kept them as pets. Everyday tactile and visual contact changed into gazing through iron bars and the photographic lens-or removing cows, pigs and chickens from view. From Berger's perspective, the philosophy of Descartes, who spent more than 20 years in the Dutch Republic and published all his major works there, marks a turning point, creating conceptual and physical boundaries between humans and other animals. The decades after Berger's essay have witnessed the further rise of movements for animal rights, and the emergence of the academic discipline of animal studies. Within both-partially overlapping-fields, Descartes has been pinpointed as a key, symbolic figure. 4 This volume of the Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art / Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek is devoted to humans and other animals in the art of the Low Countries. Its title takes cognisance of the cross-disciplinary field of animal studies, which challenges taxonomies that set human beings apart from, and often above or at the centre of, all other living creatures and the broader environment. The volume aims to contribute new research to a burgeoning field at the intersection of animal studies and art history. Stimulated by political and ethical concerns, animal studies has entered academic discourse, resulting, for example, in the publication of important surveys including the Oxford handbook of animal studies (2017). 5
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Research Interests: Intellectual History, History of Religion, History of Science, Early Modern Europe, History of Astronomy, and 7 moreHistory of Biblical Interpretation, Early Modern Intellectual History, Republic of Letters (Early Modern History), History of Anglo-Dutch Relations, 17th Century Dutch Republic, History of alchemy, and Physico-Theology
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On the basis of a closer study of episodes in Johannes Swammerdam's life (1637–1680), some corrections will be made on the slightly biased and still persistent image of the researcher. Swammerdam is usually portrayed as an isolated and... more
On the basis of a closer study of episodes in Johannes Swammerdam's life (1637–1680), some corrections will be made on the slightly biased and still persistent image of the researcher. Swammerdam is usually portrayed as an isolated and slightly paranoid figure. Here, it will be shown how he self-consciously operated in some overlapping scientific communities. It will be demonstrated that Swammerdam actively was looking for patronage, and that he considered Cosimo III as a likely Maecenas. Moreover, it will be argued that Swammerdam's well known priority dispute with Reinier de Graaf (1671–1673) was not caused by Swammerdam's alleged 'paranoia' , but the result of De Graaf 's ambitions.
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Inaugurele rede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van bijzonder hoogleraar ‘Verlichting en Religie in historisch en sociaal-cultureel perspectief’, vanwege Teylers Stichting, Leiden, 16 juni 2014.