Some useful titles here seem to be
Frederick Seebohm. The Oxford Reformers. Oxford, 1867.
James McConica. English Humanism and Reformation Politics under Henry VIII and Edward VI. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.
Maria Dowling. Humanism in the Age of Henry VIII. N.H.: Croom Helm,
Ltd. 1986
Gordon Zeeveld. Foundations of Tudor Policy. Cambridge, Mass.: , 1948. (went to manuscripts - not just printed materials, found the second tier people).
F Caspari. Humanism and the Social Order in Tudor England. Chicago: , 1954.
R Weiss. Humanism in England During the Fifteenth Century. Oxford: , 1957.
Chambers. Thomas More. 1935.(said humanism died with the reformation in Britain - 1535).
G.R. Elton. Reform and Renewal. 71-75. (talks about Cromwell's reforms but is later shown to be wrong.)
G.R Elton. Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government. Vol. 4 Papers and Reviews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. (great overview)
Friday, November 27, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The English Housewife
Written by Gervaise Markham in 1615. A handbook for housewives containing "all the virtuous knowledges and actions both of the mind and body, which ought to be in any complete housewife." Markham reveals the "pretty and curious secrets" of preparing everything from simple foods to such elaborate meals as a "humble feast" - an undertaking which entails preparing "no less than two and thirty dishes, which is as much as can stand on one table." He instructs the housewife on brewing beer and caring for wine, growing flax and hemp for thread, and spinning and dyeing. As a housewife was also responsible for the health and "soundness of body" of her family, he includes advice on the prevention of everything from the plague to baldness and bad breath.
About GM:
Pudsey, a retainer on the Shrewsbury Worksop side, bit his thumb at Orme, a retainer on the Holles Haughton side; was called out with drawn rapier, was slain on the spot like fiery Tybalt, and never bit his thumb more. Orme, poor man, was tried for murder; but of course the Holleses and the Stanhopes could not let him be hanged; they made interest, they feed law-counsel,—they smuggled him away to Ireland, and he could not be hanged. Whereupon Gervase Markham, a passably loose-tongued, loose-living gentleman, sworn squire-of dames to the Dowager of Shrewsbury, took upon himself to say publicly, That John Holles was himself privy to Pudsey’s murder, “That John Holles himself, if justice were done——!”
Holles and Markham have a duel where GM is pierced in the genitals - he survives but is incapable of having sex. This is 1497 or some such.
About GM:
Pudsey, a retainer on the Shrewsbury Worksop side, bit his thumb at Orme, a retainer on the Holles Haughton side; was called out with drawn rapier, was slain on the spot like fiery Tybalt, and never bit his thumb more. Orme, poor man, was tried for murder; but of course the Holleses and the Stanhopes could not let him be hanged; they made interest, they feed law-counsel,—they smuggled him away to Ireland, and he could not be hanged. Whereupon Gervase Markham, a passably loose-tongued, loose-living gentleman, sworn squire-of dames to the Dowager of Shrewsbury, took upon himself to say publicly, That John Holles was himself privy to Pudsey’s murder, “That John Holles himself, if justice were done——!”
Holles and Markham have a duel where GM is pierced in the genitals - he survives but is incapable of having sex. This is 1497 or some such.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
English Renaissance
The renaissance is generally considered to have started in Italy with a renewed interest in antiquity. (Dante used Virgil as his guide). Italian humanists visited Byzantium in order to learn Greek and to buy old manuscripts, saved from pillages, conflagrations, and devastation of the invaded country. Many Greek texts were brought from Constantinople. Europe was ransacked for copies of the long unused Latin classics and copyists multiplied them. With the fall of Constantinople eastern scholars moved to Rome and brought ideas and texts with them.
Some of these ideas migrated north although some say renaissance in Italy and England are unrelated. Clearly Henry VII and his mother Margaret Beaumont took inspiration from the new ideas about education and scholarship, particularly from Erasmus. Margaret met John Fisher in 1494. He was a friend and collaborator of Erasmus, who was to be her lifelong confidant, counselor, and companion. Fisher became the Bishop of Winchester, and Cancellor of Cambridge University.
Margaret translated Thomas A Kempis to English and founded two colleges at Cambridge - Jesus College in 1497, and St. John's College after her death in 1509, through a grant in her will.
She promoted the printing of books, and was a leading patron of the first English printer, William Caxton, and his successor. Finally, she belived in education for everybody
Scholars went to Italy to be educated and returned with new ideas. Thomas Linacre, for example, was hired by Henry upon his return from Italy around 1500, first as a tutor to his oldest son Arthur, and then as the King's personal physician. Linacre later became the first president of the Royal College of Physicians, which was incorporated in 1518. William Grocyn travelled to Italy to be educated, and on his return initiated the teaching of Greek at Oxford.
Two other important proponents of education in general and new kinds of learning in particular were Thomas More and John Colet. Colet traveled to Italy, where he became a fervent promoter of Platonism. More (1478-1535) was the son of a London lawyer. He studied Greek and Platonic philosophy at Oxford.
Henry VII surrounded himself with men who promoted the Renaissance's ``New Learning.'' The King himself was clearly fascinated by the political and cultural life of the main Italian states, and during his reign, the English court was a more interesting and cosmopolitan place, than it was to be in the time of his successor. Foreign scholars were likely to receive a warm welcome, and Henry was also the leading patron of English writers and poets.
Henry's interest in the arts was widely recognized, and a knowledge of the Classics was regarded as an avenue to royal favor, encouraging others to master the Renaissance learning. Erasmus reported in 1505, that London had eclipsed both Oxford and Cambridge, and had become the country's most important educational center, where ``there are ... five or six men who are accurate scholars in both tongues [Greek and Latin], such as I think even Italy itself does not at present possess.''
After studying in England, most of these scholars travelled to Italy, to master the new Platonic learning. Thomas Linacre, for example, was hired by Henry upon his return from Italy around 1500, first as a tutor to his oldest son Arthur, and then as the King's personal physician. Linacre later became the first president of the Royal College of Physicians, which was incorporated in 1518. William Grocyn travelled to Italy to be educated, and on his return initiated the teaching of Greek at Oxford.
One leading royal patron of education was Lady Margaret Beaufort, the King's mother. She has been described as ``more nearly the typical `man of the Renaissance' than her son,'' and that, even though her ``influence and endowments were ... religious rather than secular, they were outward looking and humanist, never scholastic.'' Lady Margaret was the only woman whose advice the King ever sought or heeded.
Margaret was only fourteen when her son Henry was born. She died in 1509, outliving her son by several months. As a child, she was taught reading, writing, and French. Her tutors remarked on her intelligence. She desired to learn Greek and Latin, but her mother refused to hire a tutor to educate her in the languages that were reserved for men who joined the clergy. As an adult, she completed an English translation of Thomas a@ag Kempis's {The Imitation of Christ,} which had been begun by William Atkinson, as well as translating another religious work.
Lady Margaret promoted the education of the entire population. She was a devout Christian, who championed the preaching of simple but eloquent sermons, which would uplift even the lowliest churchgoer. She promoted the printing of books, and was a leading patron of the first English printer, William Caxton, and his successor.
In 1494, Margaret met John Fisher, a friend and collaborator of Erasmus, who was to be her lifelong confidant, counselor, and companion. Fisher became the Bishop of Winchester, and Cancellor of Cambridge University. He encouraged Margaret to patronize projects that promoted the New Learning. As a result, she supported the founding of two colleges at Cambridge, Jesus College in 1497, and St. John's College after her death in 1509, through a grant in her will. St. John's, which opened in 1516, became the leading college at Cambridge for the next thirty years.
Another patron of education was Bishop Richard Fox, the man who played a key role in Henry VII's foreign policy. In 1517, Fox and Hugh Oldham, bishop of Exeter, founded Corpus Christi College, whose statutes set out in detail a humanist curriculum. Initially, Fox had wished to found a college to educate clergy in the New Learning, but ultimately, the college accepted students destined for secular employment.
Although Henry and his circle favored the New Learning, the universities remained dominated by medieval scholasticism. The efforts of Henry and his circle were ultimately successful, however, as they opened the door for a circle of scholars associated with Erasmus of Rotterdam to create a revolution in education, which led to the great flowering of culture and the English economy during the next hundred years.
The Erasmus Circle
The central figure in the circle that launched the English Renaissance was Erasmus of Rotterdam. Born to poor parents in Holland in 1467, Erasmus was educated by the Brotherhood of the Common Life, a teaching order modeled on a Kempis's {Imitation of Christ,} that took in poor, but promising children. Several of his teachers inspired him to take dedicate his life to the promotion of Platonist Classical learning.
Erasmus became the leading humanist thinker of his age, and his name was a household word throughout educated Europe. He published his first work, the {Adages,} in 1500. Works such as {In Praise of Folly} and {The Handbook of the Militant Christian} become enormously popular, precisely at the moment when printing was coming into vogue. His works spread far and wide, and played an important role in promoting literacy throughout Europe.
Among Erasmus's key collaborators in England were Thomas More (1478-1535) and John Colet (1467-1519). They were the nucleus of a small group of Classically educated scholars, formed during the reign of Henry VII, who dedicated themselves to creating a Renaissance that would usher in an age where society would be governed by reason. Colet was the son of a London mercer, who was Lord Mayor in 1486 and 1495. He traveled to Italy, where he became a fervent promoter of Platonism. More (1478-1535) was the son of a London lawyer. He studied Greek and Platonic philosophy at Oxford, and became a key leader of the English Renaissance during the reign of Henry VIII.
These scholars proceeded from the idea that, since man's nature was in the image of God, he could comprehend God's nature through reason. They rejected the stultifying, Aristotelian logic of the scholastics, whose commentaries dominated theology, and sought instead to reintroduce the writings of the early Church Fathers and the New Testament itself, in which they recognized an outlook coherent with Platonic philosophy.
Erasmus first traveled to England during the reign of Henry VII, in 1499. The circle around Erasmus, More, and Colet began to establish schools which became models for the transformation of the educational system. Around 1510, More set up a school in his home, where he taught his own and other children. In 1510, Henry VIII granted a license to establish St. Paul's school, which became the model for the reorganization of the English grammar schools throughout the country. When Erasmus turned down the job as the headmaster of the new school Colet asked William Lily, who had studied at Oxford and in Italy. Lily had also travelled to Rhodes to learn Greek. Erasmus did write the curriculum.
Lily, Colet, and Erasmus jointly collaborated in drafting a grammar textbook. By 1542, this text had been adopted as the official Latin Grammar used throughout the schools in England. Its use continued up through the Eighteenth century, and, in a modified form, in many schools even into the Twentieth.
- there WAS also something doing in England during Henry VIII (the first English Renaissance Monarch) and even more Elizabeth - but perhaps pushed more by political stability (possibly breaking with pope motivated people to find other authorities?). England less focused on visual art and more on literature, esp. drama.
Timing different? Italy 1400 - 1550, England 1485 - 1603 (or 1616)?
Religion:
Thomas More, Richard Hoooker
Science:
Politics:
Theater:
Shakespeare, Marlowe,
Poetry:
Roger Ascham, Edmund Spenser, Lady Mary Herbert, John Lyly, Wyatt, Surrey
Architecture:
Questions:
How to follow the trail of Boccacio, Dante, and others writing in the vernacular to Chaucer - and how does writing in the vernacular square with reading latin and greek texts? Is looking for pre-christian writing the common goal?
Are John Donne (1573-1631) and Ben Johnson (1573-1637) renaissance or later? And where the hell does Francis Bacon (1561-1621) fit?
Links at:
http://east_west_dialogue.tripod.com/europe/id5.html
http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/renaissanceinfo.htm
Some of these ideas migrated north although some say renaissance in Italy and England are unrelated. Clearly Henry VII and his mother Margaret Beaumont took inspiration from the new ideas about education and scholarship, particularly from Erasmus. Margaret met John Fisher in 1494. He was a friend and collaborator of Erasmus, who was to be her lifelong confidant, counselor, and companion. Fisher became the Bishop of Winchester, and Cancellor of Cambridge University.
Margaret translated Thomas A Kempis to English and founded two colleges at Cambridge - Jesus College in 1497, and St. John's College after her death in 1509, through a grant in her will.
She promoted the printing of books, and was a leading patron of the first English printer, William Caxton, and his successor. Finally, she belived in education for everybody
Scholars went to Italy to be educated and returned with new ideas. Thomas Linacre, for example, was hired by Henry upon his return from Italy around 1500, first as a tutor to his oldest son Arthur, and then as the King's personal physician. Linacre later became the first president of the Royal College of Physicians, which was incorporated in 1518. William Grocyn travelled to Italy to be educated, and on his return initiated the teaching of Greek at Oxford.
Two other important proponents of education in general and new kinds of learning in particular were Thomas More and John Colet. Colet traveled to Italy, where he became a fervent promoter of Platonism. More (1478-1535) was the son of a London lawyer. He studied Greek and Platonic philosophy at Oxford.
Henry VII surrounded himself with men who promoted the Renaissance's ``New Learning.'' The King himself was clearly fascinated by the political and cultural life of the main Italian states, and during his reign, the English court was a more interesting and cosmopolitan place, than it was to be in the time of his successor. Foreign scholars were likely to receive a warm welcome, and Henry was also the leading patron of English writers and poets.
Henry's interest in the arts was widely recognized, and a knowledge of the Classics was regarded as an avenue to royal favor, encouraging others to master the Renaissance learning. Erasmus reported in 1505, that London had eclipsed both Oxford and Cambridge, and had become the country's most important educational center, where ``there are ... five or six men who are accurate scholars in both tongues [Greek and Latin], such as I think even Italy itself does not at present possess.''
After studying in England, most of these scholars travelled to Italy, to master the new Platonic learning. Thomas Linacre, for example, was hired by Henry upon his return from Italy around 1500, first as a tutor to his oldest son Arthur, and then as the King's personal physician. Linacre later became the first president of the Royal College of Physicians, which was incorporated in 1518. William Grocyn travelled to Italy to be educated, and on his return initiated the teaching of Greek at Oxford.
One leading royal patron of education was Lady Margaret Beaufort, the King's mother. She has been described as ``more nearly the typical `man of the Renaissance' than her son,'' and that, even though her ``influence and endowments were ... religious rather than secular, they were outward looking and humanist, never scholastic.'' Lady Margaret was the only woman whose advice the King ever sought or heeded.
Margaret was only fourteen when her son Henry was born. She died in 1509, outliving her son by several months. As a child, she was taught reading, writing, and French. Her tutors remarked on her intelligence. She desired to learn Greek and Latin, but her mother refused to hire a tutor to educate her in the languages that were reserved for men who joined the clergy. As an adult, she completed an English translation of Thomas a@ag Kempis's {The Imitation of Christ,} which had been begun by William Atkinson, as well as translating another religious work.
Lady Margaret promoted the education of the entire population. She was a devout Christian, who championed the preaching of simple but eloquent sermons, which would uplift even the lowliest churchgoer. She promoted the printing of books, and was a leading patron of the first English printer, William Caxton, and his successor.
In 1494, Margaret met John Fisher, a friend and collaborator of Erasmus, who was to be her lifelong confidant, counselor, and companion. Fisher became the Bishop of Winchester, and Cancellor of Cambridge University. He encouraged Margaret to patronize projects that promoted the New Learning. As a result, she supported the founding of two colleges at Cambridge, Jesus College in 1497, and St. John's College after her death in 1509, through a grant in her will. St. John's, which opened in 1516, became the leading college at Cambridge for the next thirty years.
Another patron of education was Bishop Richard Fox, the man who played a key role in Henry VII's foreign policy. In 1517, Fox and Hugh Oldham, bishop of Exeter, founded Corpus Christi College, whose statutes set out in detail a humanist curriculum. Initially, Fox had wished to found a college to educate clergy in the New Learning, but ultimately, the college accepted students destined for secular employment.
Although Henry and his circle favored the New Learning, the universities remained dominated by medieval scholasticism. The efforts of Henry and his circle were ultimately successful, however, as they opened the door for a circle of scholars associated with Erasmus of Rotterdam to create a revolution in education, which led to the great flowering of culture and the English economy during the next hundred years.
The Erasmus Circle
The central figure in the circle that launched the English Renaissance was Erasmus of Rotterdam. Born to poor parents in Holland in 1467, Erasmus was educated by the Brotherhood of the Common Life, a teaching order modeled on a Kempis's {Imitation of Christ,} that took in poor, but promising children. Several of his teachers inspired him to take dedicate his life to the promotion of Platonist Classical learning.
Erasmus became the leading humanist thinker of his age, and his name was a household word throughout educated Europe. He published his first work, the {Adages,} in 1500. Works such as {In Praise of Folly} and {The Handbook of the Militant Christian} become enormously popular, precisely at the moment when printing was coming into vogue. His works spread far and wide, and played an important role in promoting literacy throughout Europe.
Among Erasmus's key collaborators in England were Thomas More (1478-1535) and John Colet (1467-1519). They were the nucleus of a small group of Classically educated scholars, formed during the reign of Henry VII, who dedicated themselves to creating a Renaissance that would usher in an age where society would be governed by reason. Colet was the son of a London mercer, who was Lord Mayor in 1486 and 1495. He traveled to Italy, where he became a fervent promoter of Platonism. More (1478-1535) was the son of a London lawyer. He studied Greek and Platonic philosophy at Oxford, and became a key leader of the English Renaissance during the reign of Henry VIII.
These scholars proceeded from the idea that, since man's nature was in the image of God, he could comprehend God's nature through reason. They rejected the stultifying, Aristotelian logic of the scholastics, whose commentaries dominated theology, and sought instead to reintroduce the writings of the early Church Fathers and the New Testament itself, in which they recognized an outlook coherent with Platonic philosophy.
Erasmus first traveled to England during the reign of Henry VII, in 1499. The circle around Erasmus, More, and Colet began to establish schools which became models for the transformation of the educational system. Around 1510, More set up a school in his home, where he taught his own and other children. In 1510, Henry VIII granted a license to establish St. Paul's school, which became the model for the reorganization of the English grammar schools throughout the country. When Erasmus turned down the job as the headmaster of the new school Colet asked William Lily, who had studied at Oxford and in Italy. Lily had also travelled to Rhodes to learn Greek. Erasmus did write the curriculum.
Lily, Colet, and Erasmus jointly collaborated in drafting a grammar textbook. By 1542, this text had been adopted as the official Latin Grammar used throughout the schools in England. Its use continued up through the Eighteenth century, and, in a modified form, in many schools even into the Twentieth.
- there WAS also something doing in England during Henry VIII (the first English Renaissance Monarch) and even more Elizabeth - but perhaps pushed more by political stability (possibly breaking with pope motivated people to find other authorities?). England less focused on visual art and more on literature, esp. drama.
Timing different? Italy 1400 - 1550, England 1485 - 1603 (or 1616)?
Religion:
Thomas More, Richard Hoooker
Science:
Politics:
Theater:
Shakespeare, Marlowe,
Poetry:
Roger Ascham, Edmund Spenser, Lady Mary Herbert, John Lyly, Wyatt, Surrey
Architecture:
Questions:
How to follow the trail of Boccacio, Dante, and others writing in the vernacular to Chaucer - and how does writing in the vernacular square with reading latin and greek texts? Is looking for pre-christian writing the common goal?
Are John Donne (1573-1631) and Ben Johnson (1573-1637) renaissance or later? And where the hell does Francis Bacon (1561-1621) fit?
Links at:
http://east_west_dialogue.tripod.com/europe/id5.html
http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/renaissanceinfo.htm
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Great Chain of Being
One of the big ideas that remained in force from the classical period was the concept of the Great Chain of Being. Its major premise was that everything in the universe had its position in a divinely planned order, a hierarchy that looked like a vertical chain going from the most important and perfect - God - on top to the least important and imperfect - innanimate things like rocks - at the bottom.
came from ...
DETAILS
note that people thought all links had to be represented - the most perfect world contains the whole chain, and so imperfection is part of perfection ..
Literary ramifications - metaphors indicate something about status
political ramificiations - your social position is divinely ordained, obey or else
moral ramifications - upsetting the cart is a sin
Theological - the cause is more perfect than what it causes - there must be a cause for everything - the first cause can not be caused - hence God
Illustrations:
Bibliography:
E.M.W. Tillyard "The Elizabethan World Picture"
Arthur Lovejoy "The Great Chain of Being"
other sources
http://e.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chain_of_Being
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/Tillyard01.html
came from ...
DETAILS
note that people thought all links had to be represented - the most perfect world contains the whole chain, and so imperfection is part of perfection ..
Literary ramifications - metaphors indicate something about status
political ramificiations - your social position is divinely ordained, obey or else
moral ramifications - upsetting the cart is a sin
Theological - the cause is more perfect than what it causes - there must be a cause for everything - the first cause can not be caused - hence God
Illustrations:
Bibliography:
E.M.W. Tillyard "The Elizabethan World Picture"
Arthur Lovejoy "The Great Chain of Being"
other sources
http://e.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chain_of_Being
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/Tillyard01.html
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Newtonianism and Pope and Descartes n stuff
So, it appears that the worldviews of Descartes and Newton were fighting for power over the period. Not sure what belonged where, but generally I think the idea is a world that can be explained and a world that is less about god than man.
Newton: Math, experiment, mechanistic - but also with fluids and invisible gases, Gravity really was a big deal, and ideas about how things had density and pull
Descartes: Reason, induction, mechanistic with no invisible stuff
Pope epitaph on Newton ... "Nature and Nature's Law, lay hid in night / God said 'Let Newton be!' and all was light", Pope was also interested in gravity and gravitas - and he and Swift were unhappy with the dull pedantry of minor scientists. Fight between ancients and moderns and between prose and poetry writers. (See www.ourcivilization.com/smartboard/shop/hornecj/litsci.htm for more). So is wit and poetry an attempt to balance prosaic study of nature - art against science?
Newton: Math, experiment, mechanistic - but also with fluids and invisible gases, Gravity really was a big deal, and ideas about how things had density and pull
Descartes: Reason, induction, mechanistic with no invisible stuff
Pope epitaph on Newton ... "Nature and Nature's Law, lay hid in night / God said 'Let Newton be!' and all was light", Pope was also interested in gravity and gravitas - and he and Swift were unhappy with the dull pedantry of minor scientists. Fight between ancients and moderns and between prose and poetry writers. (See www.ourcivilization.com/smartboard/shop/hornecj/litsci.htm for more). So is wit and poetry an attempt to balance prosaic study of nature - art against science?
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
EME classes
Early Modern England
Tudor to Hannover
Women in Early Modern Europe
the Saint, the Witch, the Wife, and the Widow
Women in the Era of Revolutions
Women in public 18th culture class
John Styles. The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England. New Haven Yale University Press, 2007. Illustrations. xi + 432 pp. $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-300-12119-3.
Clare Crowston, “The Queen and her ‘Minister of Fashion’: Gender, Credit, and
Politics in Pre-Revolutionary France” Gender and History 14, 1 (April 2002).
Early Modern Families
“Early Modern Perspectives on the Long History of Domestic
Violence: The Case of Seventeenth-Century France,” Journal of Modern History (March 2006)
“Sex and the (seventeenth-century) century city: a research note
towards the long history of leisure,” Leisure Studies (October, 2008).
Amy Erikson, “Coverture and Capitalism,” History Workshop Journal (59) 2005
Enlightenment in the North
Religion in Early Modern Europe
Reform and Reformation
Tudor to Hannover
Women in Early Modern Europe
the Saint, the Witch, the Wife, and the Widow
Women in the Era of Revolutions
Women in public 18th culture class
John Styles. The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England. New Haven Yale University Press, 2007. Illustrations. xi + 432 pp. $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-300-12119-3.
Clare Crowston, “The Queen and her ‘Minister of Fashion’: Gender, Credit, and
Politics in Pre-Revolutionary France” Gender and History 14, 1 (April 2002).
Early Modern Families
“Early Modern Perspectives on the Long History of Domestic
Violence: The Case of Seventeenth-Century France,” Journal of Modern History (March 2006)
“Sex and the (seventeenth-century) century city: a research note
towards the long history of leisure,” Leisure Studies (October, 2008).
Amy Erikson, “Coverture and Capitalism,” History Workshop Journal (59) 2005
Enlightenment in the North
Religion in Early Modern Europe
Reform and Reformation
Friday, May 15, 2009
Post-PhD blues
http://www.english-blog.com/archives/2007/12/the_post_phd_blues.php
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,37694.0.html
http://phdblue.blogspot.com/
http://anya.blogsome.com/2005/03/19/from-the-post-phd-blues-to-publication-bliss/
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_index.php?idx=119&d=1&w=5&e=333
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,37694.0.html
http://phdblue.blogspot.com/
http://anya.blogsome.com/2005/03/19/from-the-post-phd-blues-to-publication-bliss/
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_index.php?idx=119&d=1&w=5&e=333
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Dissertation writing advice part II
The dissertation doctor: has good stuff on the PROCESS.
http://www.dissertationdoctor.com/index.html
The dissertation journey - breaking down the pieces:
http://www.dissertationdoctor.com/journey.html
About the lit. review, why it is important and how to do it.
http://www.deakin.edu.au/library/findout/research/litrev.php
http://www.dissertationdoctor.com/index.html
The dissertation journey - breaking down the pieces:
http://www.dissertationdoctor.com/journey.html
About the lit. review, why it is important and how to do it.
http://www.deakin.edu.au/library/findout/research/litrev.php
Procrastination
Website:
http://procrastinus.com/
ABD websites:
These are sites helping people finish their doctoral dissertations.
Tips:
http://procrastinus.com/
ABD websites:
These are sites helping people finish their doctoral dissertations.
Academic Research Group
American Psychological Association
Dissertation Doctor
Eddie's Anti-Procrastination Site
Tips:
Goal Setting
This is one of the most established ways of moving forward on your plans. Take any project you are presently procrastinating and break it down into individual steps. Each of these steps should have the following three aspects. First, they should be somewhat challenging though achievable for you. It is more satisfying to accomplish a challenge. Second, they should be proximal, that is you can achieve them fairly soon, preferable today or over the next few days. Third, they should be specific, that is you know exactly when you have accomplished them. If you can visualize in your mind what you should do, even better.
Stimulus Control
This method has also been well tested and is very successful. What you need is a single place that you do your work and nothing else. Essentially, you need an office, though many students have a favorite desk at a library. For stimulus control to work best, the office or desk should be free of any signs of temptation or easily available distractions that might pull you away (e.g., no games, no chit-chat, no web-surfing). If you need a break, that is fine, but make sure you have it someplace at least a few minutes distant, preferably outside of the building itself. If you are unwilling to take the time to get there, acknowledge that you likely don’t need the break.
Routines
Routines are difficult to get into but in the end, this is often our aim. Things are much easier to do when we get into a habit of them, whether it is work, exercise, or errands. If you schedule some of those tasks you are presently procrastinating upon so that they occur on a regular schedule, they become easier. Start your routine slowly, something to which you can easily commit. Eventually, like brushing your teeth, it will likely become something you just do, not taking much effort at all. At this point, you might add to your routine, again always keeping your overall level of effort at a moderate to low level. Importantly, when you fall off your routine, inevitable with sickness or the unexpected, get back on it as soon as possible. Your routine gets stronger every time your follow it. It also gets weaker every time you don’t.
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Manuscript changes
What I want to do:
Reread Bannet
Add Wollstonecraft - at least enough to figure 0ut where she fits
Explain why the biography is important and revise to fit. It is important because:
- the circumstances of their lives provides insight into what opportunities they had (the mentors, access to resources, etc)
- the circumstances of their lives is what positioned them to HAVE other choices than gender
- the private choices they made provide insight into the strategies they used and since I am claiming that individual women could play their hand differently, I should show what sort of players they were
- I say beyond gender for two reasons - one of them is that we need to look at men and women NOT from a gendered perspective, but allowing for these other strategies - ie people listed as "women" were also other things, the other is that men and women could choose similar strategies. So yes I should have male comparisons, but in a sense I am looking at one variable to see how relevant that variable is to certain situations - and that is just fine.
- If I AM to add men, who do I do: Pope for Lady Mary, Johnson for Montagu, Hume for Macaulay, and Adams or Gerry for Warren, then Burke and Wollstonecraft.
- More on virtue?
- The literary market, read Eisenstein and Guest (small change). Consider manuscript publication at the end of the 18thC - is it still a possibility and how do we understand the marketplace at that time?
Meanwhile in France???
Reread Bannet
Add Wollstonecraft - at least enough to figure 0ut where she fits
Explain why the biography is important and revise to fit. It is important because:
- the circumstances of their lives provides insight into what opportunities they had (the mentors, access to resources, etc)
- the circumstances of their lives is what positioned them to HAVE other choices than gender
- the private choices they made provide insight into the strategies they used and since I am claiming that individual women could play their hand differently, I should show what sort of players they were
- I say beyond gender for two reasons - one of them is that we need to look at men and women NOT from a gendered perspective, but allowing for these other strategies - ie people listed as "women" were also other things, the other is that men and women could choose similar strategies. So yes I should have male comparisons, but in a sense I am looking at one variable to see how relevant that variable is to certain situations - and that is just fine.
- If I AM to add men, who do I do: Pope for Lady Mary, Johnson for Montagu, Hume for Macaulay, and Adams or Gerry for Warren, then Burke and Wollstonecraft.
- More on virtue?
- The literary market, read Eisenstein and Guest (small change). Consider manuscript publication at the end of the 18thC - is it still a possibility and how do we understand the marketplace at that time?
Meanwhile in France???
Friday, May 01, 2009
job stuff
Various links and info on jobs:
Negotiable items
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/careerprep/jobsearch/negotiable.html
Negotiable items
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/careerprep/jobsearch/negotiable.html
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Defense suggestions
What I should look at:
PG -newtonianism , Descartes p. 35, mentor/mentee relationships, how is a model different from the new categories I draw up here, Aristotle and the genres? and finally Pope and the Dunciad, did he really say what was wrong was gravity?
PM - Wollstonecraft, Bannet
DW - literary perspective, i.e. the persona of "author" that was not available to everyone, if looking at GENDER then you need to have male comparisons too (add a chapter on each guy?), also be more specific about textual analysis (e.g. p. 146 on the discussion of the curiously gendered gesture of Warren, saying how she should be excused as there were talented men who had failed also).
Consider the amount of biography and justify it.
PG -
PM - Wollstonecraft, Bannet
DW - literary perspective, i.e. the persona of "author" that was not available to everyone, if looking at GENDER then you need to have male comparisons too (add a chapter on each guy?), also be more specific about textual analysis (e.g. p. 146 on the discussion of the curiously gendered gesture of Warren, saying how she should be excused as there were talented men who had failed also).
Consider the amount of biography and justify it.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Legislation that wasn't
"Wrong dates, false attributions, and a lot of plain malarky get passed on from generation to generation as scholars plunder one another's footnotes." (From Robert Hume's Reconstructing Contexts: The Aims and Principles of Archaeo-Historicism.)
Post on C18-L by Joel Berson:
2) Writer A quotes from the 1675 diary of a young girl in New England who comments on luxurious, fashionable dress that she had seen displayed in Boston -- 40 to 65 years earlier than other writers put the arrival of fancy clothing. A cites B, who did not document his source and who told me his notes were inaccessible. Fortunately the quoted passage turned up via Google, leading to "A Puritan Maiden's Diary", discovered by Adeline E. H. Slicer and published in _The New England Magazine_ in 1894. (I also found a third writer, C, citing the same passage.) Reading the diary, my ears began to tingle -- it did not sound 17th century even to my untrained ones. Should I accept and use the Puritan maiden's quotation as evidence of the beginnings of a consumer society in Boston in 1675? Fortunately, I also found Mary Beth Norton's "Getting to the Source: Hetty Shepard, Dorothy Dudley, and Other Fictional Colonial Women I Have Come to Know Altogether Too Well", in which she "demonstrates conclusively that it was in fact composed in the late nineteenth century by its nominal editor, Adeline E. Herbert Slicer" (from the abstract). Thus Norton saved me the considerable time and effort I might have spent in "vetting" the diary myself, and at least *I* have not picked it up and repeated it.
Post on C18-L by Joel Berson:
2) Writer A quotes from the 1675 diary of a young girl in New England who comments on luxurious, fashionable dress that she had seen displayed in Boston -- 40 to 65 years earlier than other writers put the arrival of fancy clothing. A cites B, who did not document his source and who told me his notes were inaccessible. Fortunately the quoted passage turned up via Google, leading to "A Puritan Maiden's Diary", discovered by Adeline E. H. Slicer and published in _The New England Magazine_ in 1894. (I also found a third writer, C, citing the same passage.) Reading the diary, my ears began to tingle -- it did not sound 17th century even to my untrained ones. Should I accept and use the Puritan maiden's quotation as evidence of the beginnings of a consumer society in Boston in 1675? Fortunately, I also found Mary Beth Norton's "Getting to the Source: Hetty Shepard, Dorothy Dudley, and Other Fictional Colonial Women I Have Come to Know Altogether Too Well", in which she "demonstrates conclusively that it was in fact composed in the late nineteenth century by its nominal editor, Adeline E. Herbert Slicer" (from the abstract). Thus Norton saved me the considerable time and effort I might have spent in "vetting" the diary myself, and at least *I* have not picked it up and repeated it.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
NaNoWriMo
National Novel Writing Month - apparently there is this yearly novel writing competition - looks interesting and all, but I don't think I should get involved in writing a novel in a month in November. I should have other things to do. What is interesting is the page with tips on how to EDIT your work once you have a draft. Several people talk about their approach:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/nowwhat
The best three comments are from Chris Baty. He says:
1) It will take longer than you expect - and he gives a timeline. Very helpful.
2) Get someone to help you with the plot - get a 30 page or so storyboard and then get help with nailing that down. - I think the getting help is good, but I think the 30 page storyboard is even more helpful, since it gives an OUTLINE of the whole thing without all the pesky details. It gives you a frame to work from.
3) Do not polish the details of style until you have the plot down. What you polish may end up getting cut, and you end up futsing with details that will never matter. Once you know the plot and the characters - THEN you can make it pretty.
I want to add a fourth from my own experience. Use that 30 page storyboard as a base and start filling things in as you go. I made an outline that I kept expanding and expanding until first one and then a second and a third chapter emerged. At first I tried to write linearly, from page 1 to page 200, but that is really not how I process information. When I started seeing it as a puzzle where you have bits and pieces connected and they grow bigger and then one bit suddenly connects to another and you keep an eye out for all the edge pieces because when you have those in you have a frame for the whole thing. It has also been the case several times that I have a few paragraphs that stick together but really don't belong where I first stick them, so I move three paragraphs over to another part of a chapter (or in some cases to a different chapter) just like you do with the puzzle when you realize that those particular red pieces are not part of the nose but of the scarf in the other corner of the picture.
http://www.nanowrimo.org/nowwhat
The best three comments are from Chris Baty. He says:
1) It will take longer than you expect - and he gives a timeline. Very helpful.
2) Get someone to help you with the plot - get a 30 page or so storyboard and then get help with nailing that down. - I think the getting help is good, but I think the 30 page storyboard is even more helpful, since it gives an OUTLINE of the whole thing without all the pesky details. It gives you a frame to work from.
3) Do not polish the details of style until you have the plot down. What you polish may end up getting cut, and you end up futsing with details that will never matter. Once you know the plot and the characters - THEN you can make it pretty.
I want to add a fourth from my own experience. Use that 30 page storyboard as a base and start filling things in as you go. I made an outline that I kept expanding and expanding until first one and then a second and a third chapter emerged. At first I tried to write linearly, from page 1 to page 200, but that is really not how I process information. When I started seeing it as a puzzle where you have bits and pieces connected and they grow bigger and then one bit suddenly connects to another and you keep an eye out for all the edge pieces because when you have those in you have a frame for the whole thing. It has also been the case several times that I have a few paragraphs that stick together but really don't belong where I first stick them, so I move three paragraphs over to another part of a chapter (or in some cases to a different chapter) just like you do with the puzzle when you realize that those particular red pieces are not part of the nose but of the scarf in the other corner of the picture.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Dissertation writing advice
These are the things that have worked for me:
Start with the primary sources as early as possible - they will lead you to the theory you need.
Having a general sense of the territory is good, but read the theory you need to answer specific questions rather than try to understand ALL of the debates just in case.
Start writing early - like right now. Get an outline up as FAST as possible so you have some place to put all your bits and pieces of writing.
Engage with the material EVERY day. You must keep it fresh in your head so you spend your off time thinking about the issues. You cannot think through things if you have to spend the first five hours remembering what the questions are.
Find your minimal block of time to be productive - for me it is three hours unless it is mechanics. I can do mechanics in shorter blocks, and try to leave them for those times, and the times when I desperately need something hands on to do that will distract me and still keep me feeling like I am moving forward.
Have a space where you do not have to put your stuff away - unpacking every time takes at least an hour. I have a writing space where I ONLY do dissertation work. I have all my books out, my laptop and music and room for tea. When I go there I know I am working on the dissertation, and so does everyone else. I get left alone. I can concentrate.
Do no think you will remember where you saw something , you will not. Find a way to write it down, preferably a place you can find the notes later.
Write notes that are explicit enough that you will understand your line of reasoning a month later. Write it to someone else - that is who you will be a month from now. You will not remember, so don't write something to jog your memory - write something that makes sense.
Start with the primary sources as early as possible - they will lead you to the theory you need.
Having a general sense of the territory is good, but read the theory you need to answer specific questions rather than try to understand ALL of the debates just in case.
Start writing early - like right now. Get an outline up as FAST as possible so you have some place to put all your bits and pieces of writing.
Engage with the material EVERY day. You must keep it fresh in your head so you spend your off time thinking about the issues. You cannot think through things if you have to spend the first five hours remembering what the questions are.
Find your minimal block of time to be productive - for me it is three hours unless it is mechanics. I can do mechanics in shorter blocks, and try to leave them for those times, and the times when I desperately need something hands on to do that will distract me and still keep me feeling like I am moving forward.
Have a space where you do not have to put your stuff away - unpacking every time takes at least an hour. I have a writing space where I ONLY do dissertation work. I have all my books out, my laptop and music and room for tea. When I go there I know I am working on the dissertation, and so does everyone else. I get left alone. I can concentrate.
Do no think you will remember where you saw something , you will not. Find a way to write it down, preferably a place you can find the notes later.
Write notes that are explicit enough that you will understand your line of reasoning a month later. Write it to someone else - that is who you will be a month from now. You will not remember, so don't write something to jog your memory - write something that makes sense.
Possible publications
Different Directions:
Top three:
AHR
Journal of British Studies
Eighteenth Century Studies
Representations - interdisciplinary, cutting edge
The Historian
Notes and Queries
Early Modern Women (1400 - 1700)
Top three:
AHR
Journal of British Studies
Eighteenth Century Studies
Representations - interdisciplinary, cutting edge
The Historian
Notes and Queries
Early Modern Women (1400 - 1700)
Friday, January 30, 2009
Titles on EM
N. Clarke, Dr Johnson's women (2000) · N. Clarke, The rise and fall of the woman of letters (2004) · E. Eger, ‘Representing culture: “The nine living muses of Great Britain (1779)”’, Women, writing and public sphere, 1700–1830, ed. E. Eger and others (2001), 104–132 · E. Eger and L. Peltz, Brilliant women: 18th-century bluestockings (2008) · H. Guest, Small change: women, learning, patriotism, 1750–1810 (2000) · S. H. Myers, The bluestocking circle: women, friendship, and the life of the mind in eighteenth-century England (1990) · D. Hume, ‘Rise and progress of the arts and sciences’, Essays, moral, political and literary (1963) · G. Kelly, ed., Bluestocking feminism: writings of the bluestocking circle, 1738–1785, 6 vols. (1999) · N. Pohl and B. Schellenberg, eds., Reconsidering the bluestockings (2003)
Monday, January 19, 2009
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu - reactions
In the February of this year, 1762, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had returned to England after many years of absence. In October of that same year, she died. Of her appearance on her return, Mrs. Montagu wrote as follows to her sister-in-law at Naples:
"February 16, 1762. You have lately returned to us from Italy a very extraordinary personage, Lady Mary Wortley. When Nature is at the trouble of making a very singular person, Time does right in respecting it. Medals are preserved when common coin is worn out; and, as great geniuses are rather matters of curiosity than of art, this lady seems reserved to be a wonder for more than our generation. She does not look older than when she went abroad, has more than the vivacity of fifteen, and a memory which, perhaps, is unique. Several people visited her out of curiosity, which she did not like. I visit her because her cousin and mine were cousin-germans. Though she has not any foolish partiality for her husband or his relations, I was very graciously received, and you may imagine entertained, by one who neither thinks, speaks, acts, nor dresses, like any body else. Her domestick is made up of all nations, and when you get into her drawing-room, you imagine you are in the first story of the Tower of Babel. An Hungarian servant takes your name at the door; he gives it to an Italian, who delivers it to a Frenchman; the Frenchman to a Swiss, and the Swiss to a Polander; so that, by the time you get to her ladyship's presence, you have changed your name five times, without the expense of an act of Parliament."
Friday, January 16, 2009
Female Solicitors
A new imperial history : culture, identity, and modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660-1840 / edited by Kathleen Wilson. Cambridge UP, 2004
page 36-37 talks about networks of women taking care of legal stuff
Prest, Wilfred. One Hawkins A Female Sollicitor: Women Lawyers in Augustan England. Huntington Library Quarterly 57 (1994) 353-8
page 36-37 talks about networks of women taking care of legal stuff
Prest, Wilfred. One Hawkins A Female Sollicitor: Women Lawyers in Augustan England. Huntington Library Quarterly 57 (1994) 353-8
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
yew
so I was working away and thought of something I should put on my blog and logged on and saw the other blog updates and read them and now I cannot for the life of me remember what I wanted to post. Damned.
I know I want to find out if ALL public people, men and women, had a male gatekeeper (or gateopener)?
Oh oh - I remember - it was about how email and blogs are blurring the line between private and public and what looked like a linear development toward increased privacy has taken a different direction and the private era might just be a brief blip ... you can see that on stock price charts - how something that looks like a trend on a three month chart can be just a dip in a five year chart. A great example is Germany - when I grew up it was this nation that was one and then was split apart - of course then I learned that it had only been one nation for about seventy years and then of course the Germanies were united and kids growing up now think of east and west G as abberations.
Which leads to my next question - what did the eighteenth century look like to the nineteenth century?
I know I want to find out if ALL public people, men and women, had a male gatekeeper (or gateopener)?
Oh oh - I remember - it was about how email and blogs are blurring the line between private and public and what looked like a linear development toward increased privacy has taken a different direction and the private era might just be a brief blip ... you can see that on stock price charts - how something that looks like a trend on a three month chart can be just a dip in a five year chart. A great example is Germany - when I grew up it was this nation that was one and then was split apart - of course then I learned that it had only been one nation for about seventy years and then of course the Germanies were united and kids growing up now think of east and west G as abberations.
Which leads to my next question - what did the eighteenth century look like to the nineteenth century?
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