|
|
| Login • Help |
|
Current Issue Article Abstracts April 2010 Vol. 71.2 • • • • • • • • Musical References in Brucioli's Dialogi and Their Classical and Medieval Antecedents Anthony M. Cummings Among the distinguished intellectuals of sixteenth-century Italy was Antonio Brucioli, renowned for participating in the gatherings in the garden of the Rucellai in Florence during the second decade of the sixteenth century. Since Delio Cantimori's fundamental article and Giorgio Spini's fundamental monograph, Brucioli's Dialogi have been valued for the insight they afford into the discussions of the Rucellai group. Twice in the Dialogi Brucioli offers a revealing discussion of music. The references reflect intellectual traditions of great significance and longevity and afford valuable insight into the late-Renaissance reception of such venerable doctrines. Baroque Optics and the Disappearance of the Observer: From Kepler's Optics to Descartes' Doubt Ofer Gal and Raz Chen-Morris Seventeenth-century optics naturalizes the eye while estranging the mind from objects. A mere screen, on which rests a blurry array of light stains, the eye no longer furnishes the observer with genuine representations of visible objects. The intellect is thus compelled to decipher flat images of no inherent epistemic value, accidental effects of a purely causal process, as vague, reversed reflections of wholly independent objects. Reflecting on and trespassing the boundaries between natural and artificial, orderly and disorderly, this optical paradox is a Baroque phenomenon; and it is the origin of Descartes' celebrated doubt---whether we know anything at all. One Concept of Liberty: Towards Writing the History of a Political Concept Efraim Podoksik It is often assumed that European thought contained several conceptually distinct and equally influential notions of liberty. The article challenges this perception, arguing that European history was dominated by one concept of liberty. It attempts to show that the tendency to dismiss the idea of one concept of liberty is premature. Such an attitude is caused either by misplaced interpretations of ancient texts, by exaggerated historicism, or by an anachronistic reading of early modern political thought. The article suggests that the paradigm change is in order, and that the time is ripe for composing a history of one concept of liberty. Innocence of Experience: Rousseau on Puberty in the State of Civilization Mary K. McAlpin This article contributes to current discussions of the origins of modern sexuality by exploring an episode from Book II of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions (1782), in the context of eighteenth-century childhood hygiene theory. In this episode, the sixteen-year-old Rousseau is the object of an aggressive sexual advance on the part of another young man, and witnesses this young man's orgasm. By stressing his unusual immunity to understanding the sexual nature of this encounter, Rousseau places himself outside the cultural argument that moral degradation was bringing on premature puberty (ejaculation, in males) and thus degradation of the human species in eighteenth-century Europe. A Scottish Jacobin: John Oswald on Commerce and Citizenship Anna Plassart John Oswald was a Scottish journalist and pamphleteer who gained fame in the 1790s for his scandalous lifestyle and democratic political views. He was considered by his British contemporaries as the incarnation of the crimes of Jacobinism. This article seeks to reassess Oswald's place in the history of political thought by placing him within the context of his own Scottish background. Oswald's radical views were neither directly inspired by his French revolutionary friends, nor typical of the English and Scottish radical scenes. Rather, Oswald is better understood as a paradoxical heir to a mixed Scottish tradition of civic virtue and historical analysis of commercial society. Theorist at Work: Talcott Parsons and the Carnegie Project on Theory, 1949-1951 Joel Isaac In this article, I pursue two related goals. First, I aim to put theory back into our picture of the development of the American human sciences during the Cold War. While historians have rightly highlighted the empiricist methodologies employed by postwar human scientists, I show how an influential group of social scientists, led by the sociologist Talcott Parsons, attempted to establish theorizing as the primary means of interdisciplinary inquiry. My second goal is to show that the "abstract" theory envisioned by Parsons and his followers can and should be studied as a material practice. The Recent Boom in Shanghai Studies Joshua A. Fogel Since the mid-1980s there has been a great deal of scholarly interest focused on the history of modern Shanghai. In association with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, both the University of California at Berkeley and Cornell University were recipients of Luce Foundation grants that brought Shanghai scholars to North America, resulting in an outpouring of books and articles. In addition, there has been a simultaneous surge of interest among Japanese scholars and, on a smaller scale, French and German scholars. A significant slice of this new research focuses on cultural and intellectual history. This essay examines much of that new material and suggests reasons for why such a development has taken place. |
| Copyright © 2010 University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved. Site Use and Privacy Policy |
Published by the University of Pennsylvania Press 3905 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104; phone: 215-898-6261 |