Kategorie: Wissensgeschichte

Rumors in Transition: Uncertain Information in the Premodern Culture of News

“Flying Tales” of War Sometime in early 1523, the merchant Matthias Mulich (†1528) received a letter from his servant Matthias Scharpenberch. Mulich usually lived and worked in the Hanseatic city of Lübeck but was staying in Nuremberg at the time for family reasons. There, he regularly received letters that informed him about the situation in … Continue reading Rumors in Transition: Uncertain Information in the Premodern Culture of News

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Provenance Research as History of Knowledge: Archaeological Finds from the Syrian-Turkish Border at the British Museum

The British Museum is one of the most popular museums in the world. The free permanent exhibition provides information about two million years of human history from a cross-cultural perspective. Since its founding in 1753, the museum has had a clearly universal ambition: It has aimed to explore and exhibit the history of the world … Continue reading Provenance Research as History of Knowledge: Archaeological Finds from the Syrian-Turkish Border at the British Museum

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Unicorns: Knowledge of the Environment and the Hispanic Mediterratlantic

Unicorns, although they are non-existent, are ubiquitous today as symbols. For example, they remain the national animal of Scotland, first added to the Scottish coat of arms in the 1500s to represent the untamable, proud nature of Scotland. Unicorns also intrigued ancient, medieval, and early modern authors who wrote about these imaginary animals and how … Continue reading Unicorns: Knowledge of the Environment and the Hispanic Mediterratlantic

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Exploring Histories of Risk and Knowledge

Introduction When Ulrich Beck published Risk Society in 1986, the sociologist could have hardly known how influential his work would become for scholars studying risk. The idea that industrial modernity undermined itself through the very means of technological advancement proved exceptionally relevant. At the time of publication, chemical industries and nuclear energy presented paramount environmental … Continue reading Exploring Histories of Risk and Knowledge

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Why Should You Trust Geometry? The Mathematics of Mining in Early Modern Germany

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, it developed in the silver mines of early modern Europe. From the Ore Mountains of Saxony to the Harz, in many mining cities … Continue reading Why Should You Trust Geometry? The Mathematics of Mining in Early Modern Germany

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Owning the (Deep) Past: Paleontological Knowledge and the Political Afterlives of Fossils

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. For my childhood self, the answer would have been simple: fossils belong to … Continue reading Owning the (Deep) Past: Paleontological Knowledge and the Political Afterlives of Fossils

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How Ignorance Made Modern Science

I have in my dayes seene a hundred Artificers, and as many laborers, more wise and more happy, then some Rectors in the university, and whom I would rather resemble.1 Michel de Montaigne Montaigne’s celebration of ignorance and simplicity in his erudite Essays (1580) may seem paradoxical at first, but such praises were not uncommon … Continue reading How Ignorance Made Modern Science

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Traveling Zoos as Knowledge Mediators?

Traveling zoos were a common and very popular form of entertainment in the long nineteenth century. Also known as menageries, they were large companies that moved around with various exotic wild species such as lions, tigers, and elephants. For young and old alike, it was often the first and only time they got to see … Continue reading Traveling Zoos as Knowledge Mediators?

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Knowledge Notes

Occasional notes on calls, events, publications, and more that caught our attention. Please tweet or email us your own items. Short-term Fellowships, Grants, and Internships Lessons of the Cold War? – Visegrad Scholarship at the Open Society Archives, deadline July 25, 2023. Twenty grants of EUR 2,700 each offered by the Vera and Donald Blinken … Continue reading Knowledge Notes

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Knowledge Notes

Occasional notes on calls, events, publications, and more that caught our attention. Please tweet or email us your own items. Conference The International Hybrid Conference “The Intertwining of Magic and Knowledge/Sciences in the Premodern Mediterranean (and Beyond)” is currently taking place in Paris, May 18-19, 2023. Click here for the program and link to participate. … Continue reading Knowledge Notes

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Kabbalah and Knowledge Transfers in Early Modernity

Foreword to the special issue of the European Journal of Jewish Studies 16, no. 1 (2022) Editors’ Note: As the History of Knowledge blog aims to facilitate scholarly exchange related to the field, the editors wish to highlight this recent special issue about “Kabbalah and Knowledge Transfers in Early Modernity” by reproducing the editors’ foreword … Continue reading Kabbalah and Knowledge Transfers in Early Modernity

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Knowledge Notes

NEW PROJECT & CFA for SUMMER SCHOOL: “Science at the Fair: Performing Knowledge and Technology in Western Europe, 1850–1914,”a 5-year project (2021–2026) funded by the European Research Council that includes a blog, a research seminar series, and a summer school under the broader name: Arts & Media Archaeology. The EU-funded SciFair project performs pioneering research … Continue reading Knowledge Notes

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Of Dodos, Cane, and Migrants: Networking Migrant Knowledge between Mauritius and Hawai’i in the 1860s

Editor’s note: As has previously been mentioned on this blog, our sister blog, Migrant Knowledge, also always bears some relevance to the history of knowledge. This is not surprising since, as that blog’s motto points out, it seeks to “writ[ e] knowledge into the history of migration and migration into the history of knowledge.” In … Continue reading Of Dodos, Cane, and Migrants: Networking Migrant Knowledge between Mauritius and Hawai’i in the 1860s

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Knowledge Notes

Relevant Publications and Newsletters For German readers, the Themenportal “Europäische Geschichte” (18.-21. Jh.) has devoted its January newsletter to the topic of history of knowledge, with an editorial on the state of the field and its history since 1970 by Iris Schröder of the University of Erfurt, “Europäische Geschichte, Wissensgeschichte – eine Skizze.” As the … Continue reading Knowledge Notes

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History of Knowledge at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association in Philadelphia

The History of Knowledge will be featured in several panels at the 136th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association in Philadelphia from January 5-8, 2023. If you’ll be attending, please check out some of the sessions below. One of this blog’s editors, Mario Peters, is also presenting, so feel free to find him at … Continue reading History of Knowledge at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association in Philadelphia

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Knowledge Notes

If you are going to the American Historical Association Annual Meeting in Philadelphia from January 5-8, 2023, please look for Section 128, “Infrastructure, Knowledge, and US Imperialism in the Americas, c. 1890-1970,” Friday, January 6th, 3:30-5, in the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown. It will feature a presentation by GHI Research Fellow and History of Knowledge Blog … Continue reading Knowledge Notes

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‘I beg you again from my heart to help me find my sister’: RELICO and the Need for Knowledge

Editor’s note: As has previously been mentioned on this blog, our sister blog, Migrant Knowledge, also always bears some relevance to the history of knowledge. This is not surprising since, as that blog’s motto points out, it seeks to “writ[ e] knowledge into the history of migration and migration into the history of knowledge.” In … Continue reading ‘I beg you again from my heart to help me find my sister’: RELICO and the Need for Knowledge

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