Research, Resources, Perspectives
Reviews the cases of Deve Hüyük, Tell Halaf, and Carchemish to underline that a better understanding of the genesis of collections makes it possible to explain the distribution of finds and to discern gaps in our knowledge about them.
Analyzes use of unicorns as a potent symbol in the Hispanic Atlantic, showing how Europeans applied knowledge of unicorns to understanding the new world.
Discusses history of risk as an emerging field and the ways it overlaps with the history of knowledge. Uses transnational perspectives on fire-fighting technologies as an example.
My book Underground Mathematics tells the story of a discipline that has been forgotten today, subterranean geometry. Known as “the art of setting limits” (Markscheidekunst) in German and geometria subterranea in Latin
Who do fossils belong to? The question is far from new: in various guises, it has preoccupied paleoscientists, museum curators, and occasionally officials for many years, although ongoing debates about the decolonization of science and natural history collections have renewed its significance.
Montaigne’s celebration of ignorance and simplicity in his erudite Essays (1580) may seem paradoxical at first, but such praises were not uncommon in the early modern period. Montaigne’s friend, Pierre Charron, made similar claims two decades later in his widely read treatise Of Wisdome.
In recent years, historians of knowledge have been exploring a wide range of knowledge forms that move beyond scientific/learned knowledge.
Occasional notes on calls, events, publications, and more that caught our attention.
Occasional notes on calls, events, publications, and more that caught our attention.
The special issue “Kabbalah and Knowledge Transfers in Early Modernity” stems from a collective scholarly attempt to interrogate the fashioning and evolution of the many forms of Kabbalah, understood as a literary, religious, and intellectual phenomenon in early modern Europe, from the perspective of the contemporary knowledge-making processes.
