Ambrose Bierce is Missing: And Other Historical Mysteries

What constitutes historical truth is often subject to change. Through ingenious detection, the accepted wisdom of one generation may become the discredited legend of another—or vice versa. In this wide- ranging study of historical investigation, former detective Joe Nickell allows the reader to look over his shoulder as he demonstrates the use of varied techniques in solving some of the world\u27s most perplexing mysteries. All the major categories of historical mystery are here—ancient riddles, biographical enigmas, hidden identity, “fakelore,” questioned artifacts, suspect documents, lost texts, obscured sources, and scientific challenges. Each is then illustrated by a complete case from the author\u27s own files. Nickell’s investigation of the giant Nazca drawings in Peru, for example—thought by some to provide proof of ancient extraterrestrial visitations—uses innovative techniques to reveal a very different origin. Other cases concern the 1913 disappearance of writer and journalist Ambrose Bierce, the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, the truth about the identity of John Demjanjuk (“Ivan the Terrible” to Polish death camp victims), the fate of a lost colonial American text, the authenticity of Abraham Lincoln\u27s celebrated Bixby letter, and the apparent real-life model for a mysterious character in a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In reaching his solutions, Nickell demonstrates a wide variety of investigative techniques—chemical and instrumental analyses, physical experimentation, a “psychological autopsy,” forensic identification, archival research, linguistic analysis, folklore study, and many others. His highly readable book will intrigue the scholar and the history buff no less than the mystery lover. Joe Nickell, a former investigator for a world-famous detective agency, teaches at the University of Kentucky and is author of several books, including Pen, Ink, and Evidence.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_history_in_general/1002/thumbnail.jp

Photography and its contributions to the "business" of crime detection.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston Universit

Picture Puzzle History

None provided

Breaking the Letter: Illegibility as Intersign in Cy Twombly, Steve McCaffery, and Susan Howe.

This dissertation analyzes different forms of illegibility in the works of Cy Twombly, Steve McCaffery, and Susan Howe within the context of postwar experimental art and poetry in North America. From the 1950s onward, interest in intermedium experimentation prompted American artists and poets to explore the visuality of writing, and to pursue strategies for breaking down the letter as the smallest graphemic unit in alphabetic writing systems through occlusion or eradication. How do we interpret marks that are variously effaced, erased, covered, cut, and fragmented to resist notational decipherment? The dissertation considers the suspension between text and image as “intersign,” and proposes “scanning” as an interpretive mode that mediates between seeing and reading, without assuming the priority of verbal or iconic legibility. Such intersemiotic illegibility seemingly escapes interpretation, yet simultaneously invites more complex interpretive strategies that are demonstrated in each chapter. The Introduction provides a theoretical and historical framework for 20th-century inter-arts experiments, while also touching on earlier European avant-gardes, to frame the artists and poets’ use of illegibility in the postwar North American context. Chapter One focuses on Twombly’s scribblings in paintings, drawings, and prints from 1959 to 1968: by juxtaposing his own name (inscribed in handwriterly marks) with the half-covered inscriptions of names of classical poets like Sappho, Twombly foregrounds the fragmentation of the modern artist’s signature. Chapter Two turns to Carnival, composed by McCaffery from 1967 to 1977, as a hybrid text that challenges reading habits by its “destructible” book format and complex typewriter techniques. Chapter Three explores Howe’s typographic experiments from her early to later poetry, culminating in Souls of the Labadie Tract (2007), where the cutting up of letters into “microfonts” interrogates the divide between text and image. The conclusion reflects further on the critical and cultural environment where artists and poets looked to each other to explore new possibilities for American poetry. In moving between visual arts and experimental poetics, between art history and literary criticism, and between pictoriality and textuality, the dissertation places the concept of illegibility in a broader interpretive context.PHDComparative LiteratureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/99820/1/rinaldom_1.pd

A Developmental, Sequential Method of Teaching Library Skills to Student Librarians

This study developed and tested the success of a developmental, sequential series of study units to teach skills useful in the library. The units were used to train student librarians, and to develop library skills in students with little or-no previous acquaintance with the reference tools and resources of the high school library

Magnetic augmented rotation system (MARS ) - properties and performance

Magnetic Augmented Rotation System (MARS) is proposed as a system for conversion of mechanical energy into electrical energy. It works on the principle of magnetic coupling. Because it is contactless, compared with traditional gears, it increases the transfer efficiency from a driver to a rotor; reduces noise, requires no lubrication and has low maintenance cost. In order to assess the performance of MARS, a charging system based on MARS is implemented. This system includes rechargeable batteries in the range of 6 volts to 12 volts, a load in the form of a light bulb, a voltage transformer, and digital multimeter to monitor current/voltage in real-time. Additionally, infrared imaging is utilized during charging the rechargeable battery to monitor changes in temperature

Exploring Written Artefacts

This collection, presented to Michael Friedrich in honour of his academic career at of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, traces key concepts that scholars associated with the Centre have developed and refined for the systematic study of manuscript cultures. At the same time, the contributions showcase the possibilities of expanding the traditional subject of ‘manuscripts’ to the larger perspective of ‘written artefacts’

Sign Here!

Sign Here! Handwriting in the Age of New Media features a number of articles from different fields, reaching from cultural and media studies to literature, film and art, and from philosophy and information studies to law and archival studies. Questions addressed in this book are: Will handwriting disappear in the age of new (digital) media? What happens to important cultural and legal concepts, such as original, copy, authenticity, reproducibility, uniqueness, and iterability? Where is the writing hand to be located if handwriting is performed not immediately 'by hand' but when it is (re)mediated by electronic or artistic media? Sign Here! Handwriting in the Age of New Media is the first part in the series Transformations in Art and Culture

Alchemy in the vernacular: an edition and study of early English witnesses of The Mirror of Alchemy

This study concerns an English-language alchemical work called The Mirror of Alchemy (MoA). I examine manuscript copies of MoA from the 15th to 17th centuries as well as a printed edition from 1597. The main aim of my study is to edit a previously unstudied manuscript version of MoA, making this work accessible for future research and contributing to developing editorial methods for early scientific texts. A central aim is to place MoA in its textual and historical contexts to clarify the edited text to readers. I employ theory and methods from the fields of scholarly editing and textual scholarship, and integrate the discussion of manuscript and printed witnesses. MoA is an English translation of the Latin work Speculum alchemiae. This is a well-known alchemical work, formerly attributed to Roger Bacon (c. 1214–1292?). The material for my study consists of the seven extant manuscript copies of MoA, as well as the 1597 printed edition. There is a previous edition of the 1597 witness, but all the manuscript copies were previously unstudied and unedited. My analysis uncovers the textual relationships between the witnesses as well as examining the witnesses as translations, focusing on the translation of specialised alchemical terminology into English. Based on detailed qualitative textual comparisons, my study shows that the witnesses of MoA can be divided into four textual groups. MoA is an example of the gradual shift from Latin to English, as the four Groups represent different translations of Speculum alchemiae. I examine these Groups both from the point of view of their textual relationships and that of the influence of the (potential) source texts on the translations. My analysis shows that a combination of linguistic strategies was used to translate Speculum alchemiae into English multiple times. The differences in the translations are explained by the translation strategies used and diachronic changes in the language of science. A major result of this study is also the best-text edition and its commentary and glossary, as well as transcriptions of the four Groups. The edition’s text also provides some previously unrecorded words and antedatings: these show that editing and studying early alchemical material is a valuable undertaking also from a lexicological perspective.--- Väitöstutkimuksessa tarkastelen englanninkielistä alkemistista teosta nimeltään The Mirror of Alchemy (MoA). Aineistoni koostuu MoA:n 1400–1600-luvuilta olevista käsikirjoituskopioista sekä vuoden 1597 painetusta editiosta. Tutkimukseni päätavoite on editoida MoA:n aiemmin tutkimaton käsikirjoitusversio, mikä tuo aineiston tutkijoiden käyttöön. Editio kehittää myös osaltaan editointimetodeja varhaisille tieteellisille teksteille. Tutkimuksen keskeinen tavoite on asettaa MoA tekstuaalisiin ja historiallisiin konteksteihinsa. Käytän tutkimuksessa tieteellisen editoinnin ja tekstuaalitieteiden teorioita ja metodeja, ja käsittelen painettua ja käsikirjoitusaineistoa yhdessä. MoA on käännös latinankielisestä teoksesta Speculum alchemiae. Tätä tunnettua alkemistista teosta pidettiin ennen Roger Baconin (n. 1214–1292?) kirjoittamana. Tutkimusaineistoni koostuu MoA:n seitsemästä säilyneestä käsikirjoituskopiosta sekä vuonna 1597 painetusta editiosta. Jälkimmäisestä on olemassa tieteellinen editio, mutta käsikirjoituskopioita ei ole tutkittu tai editoitu. Analyysini selvittää tekstien väliset suhteet sekä tarkastelee tekstejä käännöksinä keskittyen erityisesti siihen, miten alkemistista erikoisterminologiaa on käännetty englanniksi. Tutkimus osoittaa tekstikriittisen vertailun pohjalta, että MoA voidaan jakaa neljään tekstiryhmään. MoA on esimerkki tieteen kielen vähittäisestä siirtymästä latinasta englantiin, ja neljä tekstiryhmää edustavatkin eri käännöksiä Speculum alchemiaesta. Tarkastelen näitä käännöksiä tekstien välisten suhteiden näkökulmasta ja tutkin, miten (mahdolliset) lähtötekstit ovat vaikuttaneet käännöksiin. Analyysini osoittaa, että eri käännöksissä oli käytössä oli erilaisia kielellisiä strategioita Speculum alchemiaen kääntämisessä. Käännösten väliset erot selittyvät eri käännösstrategioilla sekä tieteen kielen diakronisilla muutoksilla. Merkittävä tulos on myös tutkimukseen sisältyvä best text -editio, johon kuuluu kommentaari ja sanasto, sekä transkriptiot kaikista neljästä ryhmästä. Edition teksti tuo myös esille joitakin aiemmin tuntemattomia sanoja sekä sanoja, jotka varhaistavat sanakirjojen ensiesiintymiä. Ne kertovat siitä, että varhaisen alkemistisen aineiston editointi ja tutkiminen on kannattavaa myös sanastontutkimuksen näkökulmasta