... New York: Zone Books, 1998), 14659; M. Bowen, Empiricism and Geographical Thought: From Fran... more ... New York: Zone Books, 1998), 14659; M. Bowen, Empiricism and Geographical Thought: From Francis Bacon to Alexander von Humboldt ... 17 See A. Udías Vallina, Searching the Heavens and the Earth: the History of Jesuit Observatories (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2003); Q ...
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 2013
Motion defined the world of early modern savants. Whether Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or English, ... more Motion defined the world of early modern savants. Whether Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or English, they were taken by the new intellectual challenges and options of a world populated by people and objects moving over lands, oceans and heavens. How are we to tell the history of knowledge at the eve of modernity giving this global experience its due?
This discussion addresses the making of woman as postsocialist class-object, developing our core ... more This discussion addresses the making of woman as postsocialist class-object, developing our core notions of class-making and spiritual homelessness through an exploration of the forms of the feminine in the taste structures in contemporary urban China. The key observation is that beautification, sexual styling, and spiritual/cultural cultivation are consistently linked in narratives of “becoming-woman” in a newly successful genre of aspirational literature, which we are calling “manuals of elite civility.” We argue that these narratives may be understood in reference to catachresis (Tani Barlow, 2005), in the sense that we engage it as a descriptor both to the underlying term of analysis middle-class (which has several translations but no absolute referent) and to the middle-class nuren (feminine person) of our attention here. The second, related point is that the construction of the “new” modern woman in China, as made-to-be-looked-at in these manuals, betrays a fascination with cl...
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 2014
Note on Contributors.- Global Motion and the Production of Knowledge Ofer Gal and Yi Zheng.- Part... more Note on Contributors.- Global Motion and the Production of Knowledge Ofer Gal and Yi Zheng.- Part I. The Savant in Motion and at Home.- Two Bohemian Journeys: Real, Imaginary and Idealized Voyages at the Turn of the 17th Century Ofer Gal.- Xu Xiake's Travel Notes: Motion, Records and Genre Change Yi Zheng.- Those who stayed: English Chorography and the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries Claire Kennedy.- Part II. Dialogues and Skeptics-Traversing Geography and Cultures.- 'How very little he can learn': exotic visitors and the transmission of cultural knowledge in 18th Century London Vanessa Smith.- Diplomatic Journeys and Medical Brush Talks: Eighteenth-Century Dialogues between Korean and Japanese Medicine Daniel Trambaiolo.- The Circulation of Sericulture Knowledge through Temple Networks and Cognitive Poetics in 18th Century Zhejiang Philip S. Cho.- Part III. Motion as Free Thinking and Social Circulation.- Travel as a basis for atheism: Free-Thinking as Deterritorialization in the Early Radical enlightenment Charles T. Wolfe.- Late Traditional Chinese Civilization in Motion, 1400-1900 Benjamin A. Elman.- Index.
Motion and Knowledge in the Changing Early Modern World, 2014
This study concentrates on two travel narratives from the turn of the seventeenth century: Fynes ... more This study concentrates on two travel narratives from the turn of the seventeenth century: Fynes Morison's Itinerary and Johannes Kepler's Somnium. Though one is real and the other imaginary, and though they belong to different traditions and their authors differ in credentials and aspirations, their subject matter, I suggest, is the same. Both are concerned with motion, the great intellectual challenge of the early modern era. For both Kepler and Moryson, motion represents the prospect of knowledge attained by change of perspective and the challenge of controlling it by practical mathematics; for both it is a source of terror and a wellspring of hope. For both of them, like it was for their contemporary Galileo, motion unifies the world and gives it meaning and structure.
Motion defined the world of early modern savants. Whether Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or English, ... more Motion defined the world of early modern savants. Whether Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or English, they were taken by the new intellectual challenges and options of a world populated by people and objects moving over lands, oceans and heavens. How are we to tell the history of knowledge at the eve of modernity giving this global experience its due? 1.1 Motion People living around the turn of the seventeenth century were experiencing motion in ways beyond the grasp of anyone less than a century earlier. Goods and people were crossing lands and oceans to distances never envisioned and in scales hardly imaginable by their recent predecessors. The earth itself was set in motion and the heavens were populated by a whole new array of moving objects: comets, moons, and sunspots. Even the motion of terrestrial objects – so close at hand and seemingly obvious – was being thoroughly reshaped. In the two centuries to follow, this incessant, world-changing motion would transform the creation, interpretation and dissemination of knowledge and the life and experience of the people producing it: savants, artisans, pilots, explorers and collectors. This volume comprises studies of this early modern drama of motion and transformation of knowledge.
People living around the turn of the 17th century were experiencing motion in ways beyond the gra... more People living around the turn of the 17th century were experiencing motion in ways beyond the grasp of anyone less than a century earlier. Goods and people were crossing lands and oceans to distances never envisioned and in scales hardly imaginable by their recent predecessors. The earth itself has been set in motion and the heavens were populated by a whole new array of moving objects: comets, moons, sun spots. Even the motion of terrestrial objects—so close at hand and seemingly obvious—was being thoroughly reshaped. In the two centuries to follow, this incessant, world-changing motion would transform the creation, interpretation and dissemination of knowledge and the life and experiences of the people producing it: savants, artisans, pilots, collectors. The suggested volume comprises studies of this early modern drama of motion and transformation of knowledge. This drama was a global experience. From the Mongol conquest of Eurasia linking the landmasses to the ‘age of discovery’ connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific, Asia, Europe, and finally the “New World” became inextricably bound. By the middle of the 16th century, commerce, conquest and exploration across political and geographical borders have turned these ties into a close-bound global economic and cultural network: Chinese-Indian spice was carried by Dutch vessels; Peruvian silver, brought by the Spanish, monetized the Chinese economy; Portuguese merchant ships mediated silk trade between China and Japan and took over internal exchange in the Indian Ocean; Chinese porcelain export dictated economy, finance and taste in both Europe and China. This collection is unique in taking this global nature of early modern network of commerce and culture as a fundamental fact in studying the sea-changes in practices and modes of knowledge from the 16th to the 18th century. It thus contains studies of the theme of motion and knowledge in China, Europe and the Pacific. A few recent works such as Cook’s Matters of Exchange (2007), Elman’s On their Own Terms (2005), and Raj’s Relocating Modern Science (2010) suggest the need to treat early modern science as a “global shift with many sources and roots,” in the words of Subrahamanyan’s “Connected Histories,” (1997). But despite these pioneering insights, the historiography of early modern knowledge is still dominated by the image of clash and accommodation between reified “civilizations,” of a cultural contest between the new and evolving vs. the static and antiquated. A truly global history of knowledge—in particular at the early, formative epoch of the ‘scientific revolution’—still awaits a new framework from which to examine this early modern economically and culturally interdependent world and its corollary world of knowledge. This collection takes a step in this direction by looking at the common experience of a world set in motion and the varied answers to its challenges and opportunities.
... New York: Zone Books, 1998), 14659; M. Bowen, Empiricism and Geographical Thought: From Fran... more ... New York: Zone Books, 1998), 14659; M. Bowen, Empiricism and Geographical Thought: From Francis Bacon to Alexander von Humboldt ... 17 See A. Udías Vallina, Searching the Heavens and the Earth: the History of Jesuit Observatories (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2003); Q ...
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 2013
Motion defined the world of early modern savants. Whether Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or English, ... more Motion defined the world of early modern savants. Whether Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or English, they were taken by the new intellectual challenges and options of a world populated by people and objects moving over lands, oceans and heavens. How are we to tell the history of knowledge at the eve of modernity giving this global experience its due?
This discussion addresses the making of woman as postsocialist class-object, developing our core ... more This discussion addresses the making of woman as postsocialist class-object, developing our core notions of class-making and spiritual homelessness through an exploration of the forms of the feminine in the taste structures in contemporary urban China. The key observation is that beautification, sexual styling, and spiritual/cultural cultivation are consistently linked in narratives of “becoming-woman” in a newly successful genre of aspirational literature, which we are calling “manuals of elite civility.” We argue that these narratives may be understood in reference to catachresis (Tani Barlow, 2005), in the sense that we engage it as a descriptor both to the underlying term of analysis middle-class (which has several translations but no absolute referent) and to the middle-class nuren (feminine person) of our attention here. The second, related point is that the construction of the “new” modern woman in China, as made-to-be-looked-at in these manuals, betrays a fascination with cl...
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 2014
Note on Contributors.- Global Motion and the Production of Knowledge Ofer Gal and Yi Zheng.- Part... more Note on Contributors.- Global Motion and the Production of Knowledge Ofer Gal and Yi Zheng.- Part I. The Savant in Motion and at Home.- Two Bohemian Journeys: Real, Imaginary and Idealized Voyages at the Turn of the 17th Century Ofer Gal.- Xu Xiake's Travel Notes: Motion, Records and Genre Change Yi Zheng.- Those who stayed: English Chorography and the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries Claire Kennedy.- Part II. Dialogues and Skeptics-Traversing Geography and Cultures.- 'How very little he can learn': exotic visitors and the transmission of cultural knowledge in 18th Century London Vanessa Smith.- Diplomatic Journeys and Medical Brush Talks: Eighteenth-Century Dialogues between Korean and Japanese Medicine Daniel Trambaiolo.- The Circulation of Sericulture Knowledge through Temple Networks and Cognitive Poetics in 18th Century Zhejiang Philip S. Cho.- Part III. Motion as Free Thinking and Social Circulation.- Travel as a basis for atheism: Free-Thinking as Deterritorialization in the Early Radical enlightenment Charles T. Wolfe.- Late Traditional Chinese Civilization in Motion, 1400-1900 Benjamin A. Elman.- Index.
Motion and Knowledge in the Changing Early Modern World, 2014
This study concentrates on two travel narratives from the turn of the seventeenth century: Fynes ... more This study concentrates on two travel narratives from the turn of the seventeenth century: Fynes Morison's Itinerary and Johannes Kepler's Somnium. Though one is real and the other imaginary, and though they belong to different traditions and their authors differ in credentials and aspirations, their subject matter, I suggest, is the same. Both are concerned with motion, the great intellectual challenge of the early modern era. For both Kepler and Moryson, motion represents the prospect of knowledge attained by change of perspective and the challenge of controlling it by practical mathematics; for both it is a source of terror and a wellspring of hope. For both of them, like it was for their contemporary Galileo, motion unifies the world and gives it meaning and structure.
Motion defined the world of early modern savants. Whether Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or English, ... more Motion defined the world of early modern savants. Whether Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or English, they were taken by the new intellectual challenges and options of a world populated by people and objects moving over lands, oceans and heavens. How are we to tell the history of knowledge at the eve of modernity giving this global experience its due? 1.1 Motion People living around the turn of the seventeenth century were experiencing motion in ways beyond the grasp of anyone less than a century earlier. Goods and people were crossing lands and oceans to distances never envisioned and in scales hardly imaginable by their recent predecessors. The earth itself was set in motion and the heavens were populated by a whole new array of moving objects: comets, moons, and sunspots. Even the motion of terrestrial objects – so close at hand and seemingly obvious – was being thoroughly reshaped. In the two centuries to follow, this incessant, world-changing motion would transform the creation, interpretation and dissemination of knowledge and the life and experience of the people producing it: savants, artisans, pilots, explorers and collectors. This volume comprises studies of this early modern drama of motion and transformation of knowledge.
People living around the turn of the 17th century were experiencing motion in ways beyond the gra... more People living around the turn of the 17th century were experiencing motion in ways beyond the grasp of anyone less than a century earlier. Goods and people were crossing lands and oceans to distances never envisioned and in scales hardly imaginable by their recent predecessors. The earth itself has been set in motion and the heavens were populated by a whole new array of moving objects: comets, moons, sun spots. Even the motion of terrestrial objects—so close at hand and seemingly obvious—was being thoroughly reshaped. In the two centuries to follow, this incessant, world-changing motion would transform the creation, interpretation and dissemination of knowledge and the life and experiences of the people producing it: savants, artisans, pilots, collectors. The suggested volume comprises studies of this early modern drama of motion and transformation of knowledge. This drama was a global experience. From the Mongol conquest of Eurasia linking the landmasses to the ‘age of discovery’ connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific, Asia, Europe, and finally the “New World” became inextricably bound. By the middle of the 16th century, commerce, conquest and exploration across political and geographical borders have turned these ties into a close-bound global economic and cultural network: Chinese-Indian spice was carried by Dutch vessels; Peruvian silver, brought by the Spanish, monetized the Chinese economy; Portuguese merchant ships mediated silk trade between China and Japan and took over internal exchange in the Indian Ocean; Chinese porcelain export dictated economy, finance and taste in both Europe and China. This collection is unique in taking this global nature of early modern network of commerce and culture as a fundamental fact in studying the sea-changes in practices and modes of knowledge from the 16th to the 18th century. It thus contains studies of the theme of motion and knowledge in China, Europe and the Pacific. A few recent works such as Cook’s Matters of Exchange (2007), Elman’s On their Own Terms (2005), and Raj’s Relocating Modern Science (2010) suggest the need to treat early modern science as a “global shift with many sources and roots,” in the words of Subrahamanyan’s “Connected Histories,” (1997). But despite these pioneering insights, the historiography of early modern knowledge is still dominated by the image of clash and accommodation between reified “civilizations,” of a cultural contest between the new and evolving vs. the static and antiquated. A truly global history of knowledge—in particular at the early, formative epoch of the ‘scientific revolution’—still awaits a new framework from which to examine this early modern economically and culturally interdependent world and its corollary world of knowledge. This collection takes a step in this direction by looking at the common experience of a world set in motion and the varied answers to its challenges and opportunities.
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This drama was a global experience. From the Mongol conquest of Eurasia linking the landmasses to the ‘age of discovery’ connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific, Asia, Europe, and finally the “New World” became inextricably bound. By the middle of the 16th century, commerce, conquest and exploration across political and geographical borders have turned these ties into a close-bound global economic and cultural network: Chinese-Indian spice was carried by Dutch vessels; Peruvian silver, brought by the Spanish, monetized the Chinese economy; Portuguese merchant ships mediated silk trade between China and Japan and took over internal exchange in the Indian Ocean; Chinese porcelain export dictated economy, finance and taste in both Europe and China.
This collection is unique in taking this global nature of early modern network of commerce and culture as a fundamental fact in studying the sea-changes in practices and modes of knowledge from the 16th to the 18th century. It thus contains studies of the theme of motion and knowledge in China, Europe and the Pacific. A few recent works such as Cook’s Matters of Exchange (2007), Elman’s On their Own Terms (2005), and Raj’s Relocating Modern Science (2010) suggest the need to treat early modern science as a “global shift with many sources and roots,” in the words of Subrahamanyan’s “Connected Histories,” (1997). But despite these pioneering insights, the historiography of early modern knowledge is still dominated by the image of clash and accommodation between reified “civilizations,” of a cultural contest between the new and evolving vs. the static and antiquated. A truly global history of knowledge—in particular at the early, formative epoch of the ‘scientific revolution’—still awaits a new framework from which to examine this early modern economically and culturally interdependent world and its corollary world of knowledge. This collection takes a step in this direction by looking at the common experience of a world set in motion and the varied answers to its challenges and opportunities.
This drama was a global experience. From the Mongol conquest of Eurasia linking the landmasses to the ‘age of discovery’ connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific, Asia, Europe, and finally the “New World” became inextricably bound. By the middle of the 16th century, commerce, conquest and exploration across political and geographical borders have turned these ties into a close-bound global economic and cultural network: Chinese-Indian spice was carried by Dutch vessels; Peruvian silver, brought by the Spanish, monetized the Chinese economy; Portuguese merchant ships mediated silk trade between China and Japan and took over internal exchange in the Indian Ocean; Chinese porcelain export dictated economy, finance and taste in both Europe and China.
This collection is unique in taking this global nature of early modern network of commerce and culture as a fundamental fact in studying the sea-changes in practices and modes of knowledge from the 16th to the 18th century. It thus contains studies of the theme of motion and knowledge in China, Europe and the Pacific. A few recent works such as Cook’s Matters of Exchange (2007), Elman’s On their Own Terms (2005), and Raj’s Relocating Modern Science (2010) suggest the need to treat early modern science as a “global shift with many sources and roots,” in the words of Subrahamanyan’s “Connected Histories,” (1997). But despite these pioneering insights, the historiography of early modern knowledge is still dominated by the image of clash and accommodation between reified “civilizations,” of a cultural contest between the new and evolving vs. the static and antiquated. A truly global history of knowledge—in particular at the early, formative epoch of the ‘scientific revolution’—still awaits a new framework from which to examine this early modern economically and culturally interdependent world and its corollary world of knowledge. This collection takes a step in this direction by looking at the common experience of a world set in motion and the varied answers to its challenges and opportunities.