549 research outputs found
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Reading Strategies for Coping with Information Overload, ca.1550-1700
This article surveys some of the ways in which early modern scholars responded to what they perceived as an overabundance of books. In addition to owning more books and applying selective judgment as well as renewed diligence to their reading and note-taking, scholars devised shortcuts, sometimes based on medieval antecedents. These shortcuts included the use of the alphabetical index, whether printed or handmade, to read a book in parts, and the use of reference books, amanuenses, abbreviations, or the cutting and pasting from printed or manuscript sources to save time and effort in note-taking.Histor
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Disciplinary Distinctions before the "Two Cultures"
C. P. Snow's conception of "two cultures" has been readily applied to modern European and especially Anglo-American contexts and used to bemoan the negative impact of disciplinary distinctions. But in the pre-modern period, disciplinary distinctions prevailed along different fault lines. I consider two examples of the dynamics between the disciplines in medieval and early modern Europe to argue that distinctions between the disciplines can foster crucial benefits along with the tensions and obstacles to interdisciplinarity of which we are more often aware. In the medieval university the institutional and intellectual separation between philosophy and theology gave the former an important measure of protection and independence from the cultural dominance of the latter. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the long-traditional distinction between mathematical disciplines and Aristotelian physics was gradually abandoned, and distinctions akin to those Snow identified were first commented on during the quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns (c. 1687).Histor
Hidden Hands: Amanuenses and Authorship in Early Modern Europe
The University of Pennsylvania Libraries A.S.W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography for 2014:
Monday, March 17, 2014: Hidden Helpers. Total time: 1:18:23. Welcome: David N. McKnight (00:10); Introduction: Roger Chartier (03:58); Lecture: Ann Blair (11:40); Questions and answers (01:02:00).
Tuesday, March 18, 2014: Hands and Minds at Work. Total time: 01:45:05. Welcome: David N. McKnight (00:04); Introduction: Peter Stallybrass (02:30); Lecture: Ann Blair (08:12); Questions and answers (01:22:35).
Thursday, March 20, 2014: Authors and Amanuenses. Total time: 01:34:52. Welcome: David N. McKnight (00:10); Introduction: Lynne Farrington (05:55); Lecture: Ann Blair (14:19); Questions and answers (01:08:54).
Intellectual work in early Modern Europe was rarely performed alone, despite literary and iconographical representations to the contrary--scholars worked with others in many ways. In these lectures, Professor Blair focuses on the family members, students, and servants who served as amanuenses by helping an author or scholar in the process of composing and writing.
Ann Blair is Director of Undergraduate Studies, Harvard College Professor, and Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at Harvard University. Her publications include Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information Before the Modern Age (Yale, 2010) and The Theater of Nature: Jean Bodin and Renaissance Science (Princeton, 1997).
To download a podcast of each lecture, choose one of the additional files below. To view the event announcement, select the Download button at upper right
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The Rise of Note-Taking in Early Modern Europe
The history of note-taking has only begun to be written. On the one hand, the basic functions of selecting, summarizing, storing and sorting information garnered from reading, listening, observing and thinking can be identified in most literate contexts in some form or other. On the other hand, Renaissance humanists emphasized with unprecedented success the virtues of stockpiling notes on large scales and for the long term, thanks to the availability of paper and a new abundance of books, but also to their ability to transmit their own keen motivation to avoid any future loss of learning. We continue to share many early modern ideals for insuring the collection and retrievability of information and have built on early modern practices that facilitate the accumulation and the organization of information, including collaborative work and the use of rearrangeable slips.Histor
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Tycho Brahe's Critique of Copernicus and the Copernican System
Histor
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Mosaic Physics and the Search for a Pious Natural Philosophy in the Late Renaissance
In the tense religious climate of the late Renaissance (ca. 1550-1650), traditional charges of impiety directed against Aristotle carried new weight. Many turned to alternative philosophical authorities in the search for a truly pious philosophy. Another, "most pious" solution was to ground natural philosophy on a literal reading of the Bible, especially Genesis. I examine this kind of physics, often called Mosaic, or sacred, or Christian, through the example of Johann Amos Comenius and those whom he praises as predecessors in his attempt to reform physics according to the "divine light" of Scripture. In analyzing the works of these authors, I conclude that what they shared most effectively was an agenda rather than a practice. They defended the single, universal truth of a "Christian philosophy" grounded in biblical literalism against the impious excesses of philosophical naturalism, on the one hand, and against the antiphilosophical attacks of extreme theologians, on the other hand. This peculiar strand of natural philosophy, neither traditional nor "modern," needs to be included in attempts to map the complex dynamics of contemporary debates and self-presentations.Histor
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An Early Modernist’s Perspective
Historians of science can gain new insights into the material practices and intellectual trajectories of natural philosophers by attending to evidence of what they read and how. From the time of the early modern period we have sources not often extant for earlier periods, including manuscript reading notes, kept in separate notebooks or in the margins of books, and advice books on how to read. From this variety of sources we can piece together evidence (though generally not a complete picture) about the reading habits peculiar to individuals as well as those widely shared in a given cultural context, including ways of relying on the reading of others; by attending to traces of reading we can also learn more about the reception of particular scientific works. The history of reading broadens the range of questions the historian of science can pose to analyze a scientific work in its historical context.Histor
The mechanism of 2,3,5,6-tetramethyl-p-phenylenediamine myotoxicity in the rat: an in vivo and in vitro study
2,3,5,6-TMPD, a derivative of p-phenylene diamine causes necrosis of skeletal muscle in a highly specific manner when administered to rats. The mechanism of TMPD toxicity in vivo is not fully understood.
Previous research has revealed that the initiation site of TMPD toxicity is the mitochondrial respiratory chain protein, cytochrome c oxidase (complex IV), which catalyses the oxidation of the amine. Re-reduction of the di-imine metabolite by DT-diaphorase (NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase) may facilitate a futile redox cycling reaction with concomitant depletion of reduced glutathione (GSH) and pyridine nucleotides.
A single dose of TMPD (60 μmol kg-1) caused a reduction in glutathione (GSH) and ATP levels in the diaphragm. The effect was less pronounced in quadriceps muscle. These biochemical changes were accompanied by increases in serum transaminases and the skeletal muscle isoform of creatine kinase (CK-MM). Electron microscopy revealed gross damage to the mitochondria and sarcotubular elements of both diaphragm and quadriceps muscle. Oxidative fibres appeared to be more vulnerable to the toxic effects of TMPD than glycolytic fibres. This may reflect the metabolic differences and/or numbers of mitochondria that these muscles possess.
Glutathione-S-transferase (GST) activity was increased in a dose-dependant manner, although glutathione reductase activity was inhibited by TMPD treatment. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity showed little change following exposure to the amine and correlated with evidence to suggest that oxidation of TMPD is not accompanied by significant oxygen activation.
Cytotoxicity is believed to occur as a result of GSH depletion and the formation of mixed disulphides. Redox cycling of TMPD within the mitochondrion almost certainly contributes to the decrease in respiratory control and ADP:O ratios. This loss of function strongly correlates with the depletion of the mitochondrial GSH pool. Loss of the tripeptide would leave the thiol groups of the cell vulnerable to oxidative modification, which may explain the decrease in activity of the respiratory chain proteins, complex I, and complex II-III
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