tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62318586253626405962024-03-18T05:28:06.382-04:00Medieval RobotsMedieval is the new modern.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger139125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-75899582658686480462021-04-07T23:00:00.000-04:002021-04-07T23:00:14.040-04:00The Diorama of Samuel Peeps<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Samuel Pepys
(pronounced “peeps”), committed diarist and official in the British Royal Navy,
was born in London in 1633 and died in London in 1703. Pepys kept a detailed
diary for almost a decade, between 1660 and 1669, and recorded the events of
his life, large and small, in its pages. Thanks both to his position within the
Admiralty and the dramatic events of the decade he chronicled, Pepys’ diary is
one of the best sources for the politics of the period as well as both the
appearance of plague in London in 1665 and the Great Fire in 1666. Pepys writes
in his diary often of his love of music, theater, good food, fine wine, and women,
and he has a reputation as a bon vivant and conversational wit.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> ***</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One of the most well-known incidents in Pepys’
diary is his burial of his wine and cheese and other valuables during the Great
Fire of London. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><style>@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 2 0 0 159 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style> <br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><style>@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 2 0 0 159 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style>
</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">#1. Tuesday 4
September, 1666</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Sir W. Pen and I to Tower-streete, and there met
the fire burning three or four doors beyond Mr. Howell’s, whose goods, poor
man, his trayes, and dishes, shovells, &c., were flung all along
Tower-street in the kennels, and people working therewith from one end to the
other; the fire coming on in that narrow streete, on both sides, with infinite
fury. Sir W. Batten not knowing how to remove his wine, did dig a pit in the
garden, and laid it in there; and I took opportunity of laying all the papers
of my office that I could not otherwise dispose of. And in the evening Sir W.
Pen and I did dig another, and put our wine into it; and I my Parmazan* cheese,
as well as my wine and some other things.</i></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUHxA-Q9J2DB_oBRDUyjZhQPOIjtRYgltozXIsBDYHjoj7balF0TSkDbaj45Y_oGRNy6YXZjjKXPxN4H3P8XM1l4p2sEj-zE9su6tDEy6D65OOhN3rcB3VKWtWQJJhyphenhyphenvQB6kEeYxUPUd0/s2048/Peeps+fire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUHxA-Q9J2DB_oBRDUyjZhQPOIjtRYgltozXIsBDYHjoj7balF0TSkDbaj45Y_oGRNy6YXZjjKXPxN4H3P8XM1l4p2sEj-zE9su6tDEy6D65OOhN3rcB3VKWtWQJJhyphenhyphenvQB6kEeYxUPUd0/w453-h300/Peeps+fire.jpg" width="453" /></a></i></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">*Pepys’ “Parmazan” was an expensive imported
cheese from Italy, and therefore difficult to replace. Parmesan cheeses could
weigh as much as 200 lbs. and they increased in value as they aged.</span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> ***</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pepys had a
reputation for dalliances with women and girls, some of which are chronicled in
his diary. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">#2. Sunday 25
October 1668<i><span> </span></i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><span>So home and to dinner, and after dinner all the
afternoon got my wife and boy to read to me, and at night W. Batelier comes and
sups with us; and, after supper, to have my head combed by Deb, which
occasioned the greatest sorrow to me that I ever knew in this world, for my
wife, coming up suddenly, did find me imbracing the girl con my hand sub su
coats; and endeed, I was with my main </span></i><span>[hand]<i>
in her cunny. I was at a wonderful loss upon it, and the girle also.*</i></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span><i> </i></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh89j9SLIDSMUxtcVHu-5e4UcZYn7aj9ALjF_yD7B5kywFnzk7rPVyVM3UonW-njNWdJPCalr15F94EiHlBUKBrTpiucGjg2vHuWYifXDNH9RdSrL_i_zigpLD_yUsJNi9-wUjtOupcgDM/s2048/Peeps+skirts+edited.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="2048" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh89j9SLIDSMUxtcVHu-5e4UcZYn7aj9ALjF_yD7B5kywFnzk7rPVyVM3UonW-njNWdJPCalr15F94EiHlBUKBrTpiucGjg2vHuWYifXDNH9RdSrL_i_zigpLD_yUsJNi9-wUjtOupcgDM/w446-h295/Peeps+skirts+edited.jpg" width="446" /></a></i></span></div><p></p><div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><i>*</i></span><span><i></i></span>Deb
Willet (1650-1678) was employed as a maid and companion for Elisabeth Pepys
from 1 October 1667. Work as a ladies’ maid and companion was one of the few
forms of paid labor that were considered “respectable” for women to undertake
(compared to sex work), yet these women were often coerced into sexual
relationships with their employers. Pepys dismissed Deb Willet from her
position on 12 November after this incident. “[I did] discharge her and advise
her to be gone as soon as she could, and never to see me, or let me see her
more while she was in the house, which she took with tears too, but I believe
understands me to be her friend, and I am apt to believe by what my wife hath
of late told me is a cunning girle, if not a slut.”</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">*** <br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A year before the Great Fire, Pepys chronicled the
Plague Year of 1665, part of the last major outbreak in London during the
Second Plague Pandemic from the thirteenth century through the seventeenth.
During the course of this outbreak roughly 100,000 people in London died, most of them poor.
<style>@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 2 0 0 159 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style> <br /></span></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">#3. Sunday 31
December, 1665</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">
<i>I have raised my estate from 1300 pounds this
year to 4400 pounds…It is true we have gone through great melancholy because of
the great plague, and I put to great charges by it, by keeping my family long
at Woolwich, and myself and another part of my family, my clerks, at my charge
at Greenwich, and a mayde at London; but I hope the King will give us some
satisfaction for that. But now the plague is abated almost to nothing, and I
intending to get to London as fast as I can…I have never lived so merrily (besides
that I never got so much) as I have done this plague time…* <br /></i></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_kkuNxfrYAgM3qFwdSeNANbcJNhi00LOhDBM8tSqOuOBs76NTUHVH4HykfKya-rphPZHKQa1sgJTAh8Kq8txBL1Kjnw2bbBLKX9Hj5LSaEQholxkWooAcz5N6tyvD4lIY3zb102t-pdw/s2048/Peeps+smug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="2048" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_kkuNxfrYAgM3qFwdSeNANbcJNhi00LOhDBM8tSqOuOBs76NTUHVH4HykfKya-rphPZHKQa1sgJTAh8Kq8txBL1Kjnw2bbBLKX9Hj5LSaEQholxkWooAcz5N6tyvD4lIY3zb102t-pdw/w421-h279/Peeps+smug.jpg" width="421" /></a></i></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>*</i>During
this time Pepys was a shareholder in the English Royal African Company, also
called the Guinea Company. Originally chartered in 1660 to enter the gold trade
on the west coast of Africa, in 1663 the Royal African Company was re-founded
with a new charter that specifically mentioned trade in enslaved people from
Africa, along with gold and elephant ivory. Between 1663 and 1731, when the
company finally stopped kidnapping and selling human beings into slavery, the
Royal African Company enslaved and transported approximately 212,000 people to
plantations in the Caribbean and North America, and of those people roughly
44,000 died on the Middle Passage. The charter is found here: “America and West
Indies: January 1663,” in <i>Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and
West Indies: Volume 5, 1661-1668</i>, ed. W Noel Sainsbury (London: Her
Majesty's Stationery Office, 1880), 119-122. <i>British History Online</i>,
accessed March 30, 2021, <a href="http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/colonial/america-west-indies/vol5/pp119-122">http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/colonial/america-west-indies/vol5/pp119-122</a>.)</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span></span><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><style>@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 2 0 0 159 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style> </i></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMK4KDjZhAChWpaM_xC0MpDPKWYkrnyEYQNexn2Qq4Whilujc4mVOlZFKagCuY5FplJFSiy4-CLiCJoNxs8NxfLUdqL6jdOYlvHn0Lpw8tt0LjWFtT0pu9vatZU58qliK2r555AJW6y0g/s2048/Peeps+RAC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1360" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMK4KDjZhAChWpaM_xC0MpDPKWYkrnyEYQNexn2Qq4Whilujc4mVOlZFKagCuY5FplJFSiy4-CLiCJoNxs8NxfLUdqL6jdOYlvHn0Lpw8tt0LjWFtT0pu9vatZU58qliK2r555AJW6y0g/w239-h361/Peeps+RAC.jpg" width="239" /></a></i></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span>
<p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond", serif;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><style>@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 2 0 0 159 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style> </span></span></span>
<style>@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 2 0 0 159 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><style>@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 2 0 0 159 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style> </span></p>
<p><style>@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 2 0 0 159 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-68151003505672890672020-06-15T11:19:00.000-04:002020-06-16T22:39:55.215-04:00Care and Repair<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've begun watching <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Repair_Shop" target="_blank">The Repair Shop</a>, a British reality tv show (first two seasons are available on Netflix in the US). The premise: People bring in their busted family heirlooms (music boxes, garden gnomes, paintings, clocks, furniture, teddy bears) to <a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2020-03-02/does-the-repair-shop-actually-exist/" target="_blank">the repair shop</a> (hosted at the <a href="https://www.wealddown.co.uk/" target="_blank">Weald and Downland Living Museum</a> in Sussex), where skilled artisans repair, restore, or remake them. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That's it. There's no competition. There's no appraisal of monetary or historic value. The dramatic tension comes from how the artisans confront and solve the problems in front of them, and the owners' responses to their repaired keepsakes. Seeing people moved, often to tears, by having an object--perhaps a tangible link to a beloved ancestor, or a reminder of a particular moment--repaired and returned to them, is one of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/shortcuts/2019/aug/26/most-moving-show-television-we-should-all-watch-the-repair-shop" target="_blank">the best parts of the show.</a> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The show promotes an ethic of repair, which is both affecting and empowering. Seeing chewed up stuffed toys or shattered garden gnomes treated like relics seems like it should be ridiculous or absurd. Instead, seeing experts turn their whole attention to a problem, lavishing their care and taking pains to ensure that a stuffed toy can serve as confidant to another generation, or that a favorite chair can again be used, is moving, because it is a reminder of what it looks like when others take our cares as seriously as we do. Watching the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-52063635" target="_blank">artisans</a> do their work is also a potent reminder of just how much can be repaired, if only we give it our full attention, our imagination, and our time.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The other aspect of the show that makes it a success are the craftspeople. They all seem completely delightful (and I hope they are), and they all have considerable expertise. I have, in my own research, been thinking a lot about how experiential knowledge--what you learn through your senses--is often conceptualized and presented. </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(If you're interested, there's a group of incredibly talented <a href="https://www.makingandknowing.org/" target="_blank">scholars at Columbia</a> who are exploring this topic via a 16th-century manuscript of recipes and artisanal processes.) </span></span></span></span>Learning by doing, and the kind of knowledge that learning by doing imparts, is not the same as learning via texts or theories. Roger Bacon, the 13th century philosopher, wrote that if you only learned about fire through reading, you'd have no real idea of what it was like to get burned. You have to get burned in order to fully understand it. Bacon also discussed how much natural philosophers (often associated with universities) had to learn from soldiers, farmers, miners, and herbalists. Bacon was still arguing for a strong distinction between elites and non-elites, but he also insisted that learning by doing can confer knowledge that can't be gained any other way. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In The Repair Shop, the artisans are constantly using their empirical knowledge, and their experience to solve problems and to repair items. When cleaning an antique shoe-stretcher, metalworker Dominic Chinea employs "an old farmer's trick:" an overnight soak in a solution of pure acetone and transmission fluid, a solution (in both senses) that you won't find in a book. They are constantly drawing on their empirical knowledge of how materials behave under different conditions in order to repair them, as when several of the experts worked together to replace an oak signpost and clean up a village sign that is always exposed to the elements. Amanda Middleditch and Julie Tatchell, who repair stuffed animals, can identify when something was produced by looking at the stitching, the fabric, or the stuffing. This isn't the same as expertise via connoisseurship (Antiques Roadshow or American Pickers), it's expertise gained from sustained, sensory experience. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's this experience-based expertise that allows the repair shop to be what furniture restorer Will Kirk, "the workshop of dreams." He says it with a slightly ironic intonation, like <i>I know, it's corny</i>. But yet the show keeps me thinking to myself, </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Where do I want to place my attention? </i></span>What do I dream of repairing? What can I learn by doing? What can I repair through my actions? </i>At this moment, these seem like some of the most important questions to be asking.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-79601408344455617332018-11-07T15:20:00.001-05:002018-11-07T15:20:18.135-05:00Back to School/ الى المدرسة<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This past August, I got a new backpack and a bus pass, and headed back into the classroom, as a student, for the first time in well over a decade. I'm studying Arabic and medieval Arabic manuscripts, and taking classes in history and art history, so that I can read medieval Arabic scientific manuscripts, like this one: <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrfoP7fk2fh9gLDQiLXtKwxrJpRnBA3al1ImMp6Lx25zMJxZgw5OItTEmq460Azouw5pH4Jf0BwlftMQP5iUze-quZ4PvfMnfsMyiG8OQunKrFF6DFMYyb5Nyy8ux11LZCnaB1c8kvSDU/s1600/Kitab+sirr+al-asrar+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrfoP7fk2fh9gLDQiLXtKwxrJpRnBA3al1ImMp6Lx25zMJxZgw5OItTEmq460Azouw5pH4Jf0BwlftMQP5iUze-quZ4PvfMnfsMyiG8OQunKrFF6DFMYyb5Nyy8ux11LZCnaB1c8kvSDU/s400/Kitab+sirr+al-asrar+.jpg" width="317" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">كتاب سرّ الاسرار</span></div>
<i><div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-size: 12.8px;">Kitab sirr al-asrar</i><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">, ca. 1200, Mosul. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania,</span></div>
</i><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">LJS 459, fol. 114v.</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Being back in class as a student--and a beginner, at that--has been fantastic, with benefits that I had not anticipated. Here's what I've learned so far: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">1) Sitting in a class and focusing for 80 minutes is difficult and exhausting. If you teach, you need to be aware of this. Sitting in class is far more taxing than teaching a class, even though teaching is often an intense activity. Thank god my language teachers are always getting us to move around and talk to each other. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">2) Traditional-age college students are awesome. I love getting to interact with them as my fellow classmates, rather than as their professor. The anxiety and stress they feel about "will it/will I turn out okay?" is real. And it turns out that being in class with a bunch of whip-smart 18-year-olds keeps me on my toes. Which leads me to... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">3) Learning something completely new is unbelievably invigorating. Yes, it's tiring, and sometimes frustrating and a grind, but it is also <b>the best ever.</b> It's exciting and exhilarating to stretch your brain in new ways. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">4) Arabic is an incredibly fun language to study, especially if you like aural or visual patterns, and incredibly rewarding grammatical structure. Persian, next? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What will you be learning? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-30869706756854607332018-01-29T08:59:00.000-05:002018-01-29T08:59:48.030-05:00Legends of the Voynich MS<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://brbl-media.library.yale.edu/images/1006225_quarter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="619" height="320" src="https://brbl-media.library.yale.edu/images/1006225_quarter.jpg" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yale University Library, Beinecke MS 408, fol. 83v. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The mysterious Beinecke MS 408, also known as the<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/6-things-know-about-mysterious-voynich-manuscript-180964847/" target="_blank"> Voynich MS</a> (after the rare book dealer who acquired it from the Jesuit College in Rome in 1912) has been back in the headlines recently. This strange book, written on fine parchment, has been an enduring and alluring mystery for codebreakers and treasure-seekers. Written in an elegant cursive hand, the alphabet and language are unintelligible. The writing accompanies a number of color illustrations of plants and celestial charts that are not found in nature, and numerous drawings of naked women in baths, all drawn with care and artistry. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A few months ago, <a href="https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/voynich-manuscript-solution/" target="_blank">one man</a> claimed to have solved the riddle of the Voynich's mystery alphabet, only to be <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/experts-are-extremely-dubious-about-the-voynich-solution/" target="_blank">soundly debunked</a> days later. The Voynich has a history of attracting fraudulent claims; an academic named William Newbold claimed in 1921 to have broken the cipher, only to be revealed to have made it all up a few years later. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Other cryptographers have worked on the Voynich since the 1920s, including some of the most important figures in American cryptography in the twentieth century. William and Elizabeth Friedman, based at Arlington Hall, worked on the Voynich from the 1920s until the 1960s, and eventually concluded that the script was of an attempt to create a universal language. More recently, researchers in <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9akdb3/finally-a-use-for-big-data-cracking-the-voynich-manuscript" target="_blank">Brazil</a> and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mysterious-manuscript-decoded-computer-scientists-ai-a8180951.html" target="_blank">Canada</a> have claimed to find clues to the text's meaning, using big data methods to uncover Hebrew letters as the basis for the mystery language of the text. But the words still seem like gibberish.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The text may also be a <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/04/20/voynich-manuscript-secret-knowledge-or-hoax/">hoax.</a> The earliest provenance of the book remains unknown, but it enters the historical record in the early seventeenth century, as the property of Jacob de Tepenec, pharmacist to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. The material of the book, its parchment and binding materials, date to right around 1430. Books of secrets were expensive, sought-after items by princes, physicians, and wealthy adepts; Rudolf II ultimately paid 600 ducats for the book. Hoaxes and forged texts abounded in the medieval period, from forged charters like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine">Donation of Constantine</a> to historical texts that have elaborate frame stories of <a href="https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/23836/29526">lost books</a> in ancient and forgotten languages.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Why <i>not</i> think of it as a hoax, but as a puzzle? Is it the allure of the idea that a hidden key will unlock this alphabet and its secrets, a la the Rosetta Stone? That is a potent story--with that one discovery, a past civilization became legible to the present in its own words, the distance between them collapsed into a tablet. In the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, many who became interested in hermeticism, alchemy, and other now-esoteric subjects believed that recreating or rediscovering pre-Adamic language would unlock the secrets of nature, expose hidden sympathies between the microcosm and the macrocosm, and allow one to know God more fully. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Or perhaps the impulse to decipher the Voynich MS arises fro the desire to impose meaning on something nonsensical? That can have its own hypnotic effect, too: </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-VsmF9m_Nt8/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-VsmF9m_Nt8?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-31289618379214237662017-07-11T20:09:00.002-04:002017-07-11T20:09:19.769-04:00Further Adventures in Medievalism: Squatty Potty Edition<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">I've </span><a href="http://www.medievalrobots.org/2014/08/the-dung-heap-of-history.html" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;" target="_blank">explored</a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"> the reason why it matters that we so often equate the medieval past with squalor and filth. So I was delighted when a friend sent me a link to the ad for Squatty Potty (tm) and its adjunct product, Unicorn Gold (tm).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.25%; position: relative;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YbYWhdLO43Q?ecver=2" style="height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; width: 100%;" width="640"></iframe></div>
<br />
<div style="height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.25%; position: relative;">
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LqL4DRZ2EkA?ecver=2" style="height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; width: 100%;" width="640"></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The fancy clothes and posh accents of the spokesman and the courtly ladies put a little polish on the fact that we're watching an ad about shitting and farting. And the clothes themselves are a mix of <i>ancien regime</i> wigs and panniers for the ladies and mock-Tudor doublet and slashed sleeves for the spokesman, signifying a generalized "pre-modern" period ("Humans have been pooping for over a hundred years"). Even the child in the Unicorn Gold (tm) ad reflects the tendency in European portraiture in the 17th-19th centuries to depict children clothed like small adults. During the late Gothic period, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vhfdf" target="_blank">unicorn</a> often signified rarity, beauty, and purity. The use of "real freaking gold" recalls the importance of potable gold as a panacea in medieval and early modern medicine (for those who could afford it), and the admonition to use Unicorn Gold (tm) "when you pay your taxes to King John" is a neat pun as well as an allusion to the plot of virtually every Robin Hood storyline in the 20th and 21st centuries. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Using medievalism to advertise products related to poop aligns with existing ideas about the grossness of "the Middle Ages." Yet, in a neat inversion of this existing association, the past portrayed in these ads is also more desirable than the present. Hemorrhoids are brought on by the design flaws in modern plumbing; the toilet does not accommodate the human body. And it can be said of the people of Ye Olden Days (at least for the ones who use Unicorn Gold (tm)) that their shit don't stink. Medieval is the new modern.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-77644901908824713822017-06-16T16:06:00.000-04:002019-10-14T13:03:13.566-04:00"Get Out" Got Medieval<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Out_(film)" target="_blank">"Get Out,"</a> Jordan Peele's racial horror film, uses medievalism as brilliantly as it uses <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-get-out-milk-horror-jordan-peele-allison-williams-20170301-story.html" target="_blank">milk and Fruit Loops</a> to inform the audience about character and context. In particular, Jeremy's knight's helmet, which he uses in place of a ski mask to cover his face as he carries out his nefarious pursuits, conveys a great deal about that character, and about the way that white supremacy <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/what-lies-beneath-the-ice-of-our-fascination-with-the-north" target="_blank">often</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/06/06/islamophobes-want-to-recreate-the-crusades-but-they-dont-understand-them-at-all/?utm_term=.1936ed04c7bd" target="_blank">relies</a> on medievalism. </span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Why a knight's helmet? It could easily come off as goofy or absurd. Mark Twain mined this object for its comic potential in <i>Connecticut Yankee</i>, and more recent cultural offerings, like "Role Models," have poked fun at LARPers and SCA-types. Yet, within the context of a horror film about race in America, it makes perfect sense that Jeremy carries out his <a href="https://youtu.be/E2wV6FrNRi8" target="_blank">misdeeds</a> in medieval cosplay. The knight's helmet can be <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/erinchack/things-you-may-have-missed-in-get-out?utm_term=.vpMw345qV#.ghKM2z7Y5" target="_blank">read</a> as a reference to the Knights of the KKK (founded as a <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/knights-ku-klux-klan" target="_blank">"kinder" KKK</a> in 1975), and it signals the persistent link between white supremacist ideology and medievalism, present since the 19th century. Twain himself laid the blame for this at the feet of Sir Walter Scott, whose early 19th-century historical novels <i>Waverley</i> and <i>Ivanhoe </i>were extremely popular in the American South (and elsewhere). Scott (<a href="https://harpers.org/blog/2007/07/how-walter-scott-started-the-american-civil-war/" target="_blank">according to Twain</a>) romanticized life on the grand agricultural estate, sentimentalized aristocracy and rank, and promoted illusion instead of reality. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="color: #343434; font-size: 16px;">"It was Sir Walter that made every gentleman in the South a Major or a Colonel, or a General or a Judge, before the war; and it was he, also, that made these gentlemen value these bogus decorations. For it was he that created rank and caste down there, and also reverence for rank and caste, and pride and pleasure in them....</span><span style="color: #343434; font-size: 16px;">Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, as it existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for the war."</span></i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The <a href="https://youtu.be/fFNuDkQxHGA" target="_blank">opening title credits </a>of "Gone with the Wind" make this link between the antebellum South and medievalism plain: "<i>There was a land/of Cavaliers and Cotton fields/Called the Old South.../Here in this pretty world/Gallantry took its last bow./Here was the last ever to/be seen of Knights and their/Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave./Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered./A Civilization gone with the wind...</i>" The Old South becomes the continuation of an (imagined) courtly, western European Middle Ages, both equally consigned to the past. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yet <a href="http://www.publicmedievalist.com/uncovering-african/" target="_blank">racial</a> and <a href="http://www.publicmedievalist.com/feeling-british/" target="_blank">ethnic</a> diversity throughout the medieval world were not uncommon. Jeremy's knight's helmet is the perfect prop to signal his adherence to a false narrative of history, a narrative that rests on erasing Black people from history, whether it's the history of the medieval world or of the United States. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-40978494522316203082017-05-20T15:38:00.000-04:002017-05-20T15:39:17.329-04:00The Long History of A.I.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Greene_Bacon_and_Bungay_1630.jpg/200px-Greene_Bacon_and_Bungay_1630.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Greene_Bacon_and_Bungay_1630.jpg/200px-Greene_Bacon_and_Bungay_1630.jpg" width="246" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Time is, time was, time is past," quoth the Brazen Head.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I recently had occasion to discuss medieval legends of oracular heads (brazen and other) in the context of the history of artificial intelligence. Gerbert of Aurillac (Pope Sylvester II), according to William of Malmesbury, made an oracular head using astral science that would answer questions "yes" or "no." Gerbert asked the head a question about the circumstances of his death, but misinterpreted the head's answer, and so died anyway. It's possible that William's proximity to Wales accounts for his tale of the oracular head; previous versions of this legend suggested that Gerbert had summoned a demon, using necromancy, to question about his death, and, according to Celtic legends, the decapitated heads of one's vanquished enemy could be used as oracles.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A few centuries later, John Gower transposed elements of this story to Robert Grosseteste, the Franciscan scholar and Bishop of Lincoln. In Gower's version, Grosseteste used astral science to make a brazen head that would foretell the future; unfortunately, Grosseteste slept through the head's pronouncements. At roughly the same time (late fourteenth century), Albert the Great, Dominican scholar and Bishop of Cologne, was credited with having used astral science to make a prophetic statue. In this version, found in a text on Christian morality (Albert exemplifies wisdom), one of Albert's brethren happens upon the statue and destroys it out of fear and ignorance. And just over two hundred years later, Roger Bacon, Franciscan scholar, was immortalized in an Elizabethan play as the "conjuring friar" who used necromancy to summon a demon who forged him a brass head, and which Bacon then animated via celestial magic. Like Grosseteste, his fellow Franciscan--and his intellectual forebear--Bacon, exhausted from his unceasing labors, slept through the head's pronouncement. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A few common strands emerge from these different stories. In all instances, the man responsible for the head was known--in his lifetime, as well as after--for surpassing wisdom and skill in astral science, and interest in scientific instruments. Furthermore, in all instances, the purpose of the head is either prophecy or a more nebulous "secrets of nature." Additionally, the knowledge that the head provides is "out there"--that the future is already written, that the secrets of nature are not secret to all, but not vouchsafed to human intellect. Finally, and this may be the most salient point, the artificial intelligence is successfully created--the head tells its secrets, but humans are too weak or foolish to understand: we display confirmation bias and cannot correctly interpret what the head tells us (Gerbert), we have weak bodies and need sleep (Grosseteste, Bacon), or others prevent us from realizing our goals due to their own ignorance and fear. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-2507784780952599242016-11-09T14:26:00.000-05:002016-11-09T18:37:55.181-05:00The Mirror of History<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Medieval is the new modern" is the tagline of this blog. I came up with it five years ago as a shorthand to signify both that many of the hallmarks of "modernity" have a long history stretching back to the medieval period, and to highlight the persistent medievalism in contemporary culture. </span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W34/data/W.34/sap/W34_000038_sap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W34/data/W.34/sap/W34_000038_sap.jpg" height="320" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Walters MS W. 34, fol. 15v.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Of course, "modernity"--just like "the West"--is an ideological construct, and it relies on "medieval" as the pre- or anti-modern category that defines its opposite. "Medieval" is the term that describes the primitive, ignorant, barbaric era that preceded the "Renaissance," </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">the period of rebirth </span>that banished slavish devotion to authority with inquiry and pursuit of intellectual novelty. This established, comforting narrative goes all the way back to (where else?) the medieval period, with Petrarch's lament that he lived in a "dark age." The medieval period undergirds the the narrative of progress; the period is the naive, uncivilized era that "the West" escaped or matured out of with the Renaissance (the individual), the Scientific Revolution (rationality over religion), the Enlightenment (liberalism and secularism), and the Industrial Revolution (wealth of some nations). The medieval period--a vast span of time over the globe <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">replaced by a </span>false<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">,</span></span> unitary time and place--reminds the philosophers, politicians, and scholars of "the West" of how far we've all come, and becomes <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/16/opinions/nothing-medieval-about-isis-perry/" target="_blank">a shorthand</a> for what separates us from people living in other places, rather than those living in another time.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But in light of recent events, the <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2016/11/how_history_has_been_used_and_misused_during_campaign_2016.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_fb_top" target="_blank">Middle Ages</a> are more important than ever. They offer an example of what cataclysmic demographic, political, religious, cultural, and economic change look like. Both hal<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ves of the Roman Empire provide object lessons in the perils posed to stability when the ruling elite becomes corrupt and sclerotic, and when abrupt demographic change occurs.</span> By studying the medieval period we can see what happens--on a large scale--during a period of sustained <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151204145919.htm" target="_blank">climate change</a>. The<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Middle Ages</span> offer a mirror of what it looks like to live outside of the paradigm of progres<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">s</span>. Medieval is the new modern.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-48538081575575511902016-10-27T18:38:00.001-04:002016-10-27T18:38:51.336-04:00Robots: Will Either Kill Us or Help Us to Death<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Greetings, humans. Lots of medieval/robot news to share.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/us/pentagon-artificial-intelligence-terminator.html" target="_blank">NYT</a> reports that the Pentagon is confronting the reality of autonomous killing devices, <a href="http://lcfi.ac.uk/" target="_blank">a new center</a> dedicated to ethical, computational, engineering, and social dimensions of human and machine intelligence just launched at Cambridge University. <a href="http://www.siliconvalley.com/2016/10/25/pizarro-sjc-introduces-robot-greeters/" target="_blank">Meanwhile</a>, San Jose airport has just installed new employees--robot "greeters" to help bewildered passengers. But why do they look female? <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2016/04/why-do-we-give-robots-female-names-because-we-dont-want-consider-their" target="_blank">Laurie Penny explains</a> it all. Finally, fans of the <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/2/13132514/westworld-michael-crichton-hbo-retro-review" target="_blank">original "Westworld"</a> who had hoped that the <a href="http://www.hbo.com/westworld" target="_blank">new tv show</a> would include Medieval World can continue to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/george-rr-martin-wants-a-westworld-game-of-thrones-crossover_us_5807d734e4b0b994d4c39e6d" target="_blank">keep hope alive</a>...</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ_fjJSZkh0bSTYmKM8fKGkiBXBak1YF0z-Ca-jq3XjfPMXSU2oSZDPHGVFadKtdj3Qe-gtHfRJJz9ObUaI1ai5qQdvd4cIxy5uVNxAyA2nYUyfjwCE6YURCuawCLkJDSv3q50OrgZ5po/s1600/Jazari-Machine_Pouring_Wine-large.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ_fjJSZkh0bSTYmKM8fKGkiBXBak1YF0z-Ca-jq3XjfPMXSU2oSZDPHGVFadKtdj3Qe-gtHfRJJz9ObUaI1ai5qQdvd4cIxy5uVNxAyA2nYUyfjwCE6YURCuawCLkJDSv3q50OrgZ5po/s320/Jazari-Machine_Pouring_Wine-large.jpg" width="189" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-69709361358667054112015-09-30T13:52:00.002-04:002015-09-30T13:52:44.183-04:00Creating Lives in "Black Mirror" and "Ex Machina"<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Netflix has just announced that it will <a href="http://deadline.com/2015/09/netflix-dark-mirror-anthology-series-new-episodes-1201548967/" target="_blank">produce</a> another dozen episodes of<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085059/" target="_blank"> "Black Mirror,"</a> hallelujah. The brilliant series interrogates later-capitalist techno-modernity and the shifting boundaries between self and object--specifically, our personal computing devices. This broad topic--humanity's relationship to intelligent computers and robots--has been explored recently in the new tv show <a href="http://www.amc.com/shows/humans" target="_blank">"Humans"</a> on AMC and Alex Garland's Biblically inspired film, "Ex Machina." But "Black Mirror" tackles gender in ways that complicate and enrich the narratives of human-machine relations, and that are not replicated elsewhere.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Daniel Mendelsohn, in a superb essay out this summer in the <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/jun/04/robots-are-winning/" target="_blank">NYRB</a>, explored "Ex Machina," Spike Jonze's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/" target="_blank">"Her,"</a> and the lineage of sentient machines in the western cultural imagination, arguing that the current crop of films and tv shows are less about machines that become like humans, and more about humans that become like soulless automatons. Mendelsohn used examples to describe both what he calls the "economic" kind of robots--machines that replace or augment human labor--and the "theological"--sentient objects made in their makers' images. Both groups of objects include those gendered as male (Talus, Frankenstein) and female (Haephestus' handmaidens, Ava). </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Many tales of the sentient machine have an erotic charge. Ava, the SAI droid in "Ex Machina," was made, like her "sisters," to fulfill her creator's sexual fantasies. Of course, this goes all the way back to Pygmalion's statue of Galatea, whom Pygmalion created, adored, and used sexually before she was "brought to life" by Aphrodite. In fact, in every example that I can think of, when this story--of the creator and his uncannily life-like creation--appears with erotic elements, the creator is male and the created object is female. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Like "Ex Machina," <a href="http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/be-right-back-106152" target="_blank">"Be Right Back,"</a> the first episode of the second series of "Black Mirror" also takes up the limits of the human creator and the human-machine relationship. But unlike the other examples, the machine-being in "Be Right Back" is male, and the creator who calls him into being is female. Martha (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2017943/?ref_=tt_cl_t1" target="_blank">Hayley Atwell</a>) and Ash (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1727304/" target="_blank">Domhnall Gleeson)</a>* move to a new house; Ash, addicted to his smart phone and social media updates, dies in a car accident; Martha discovers she's pregnant. She pays a service that mines Ash's entire online presence to create a simulacrum of him, first as a disembodied AI program, and then fully embodied in a synthetic form that is almost identical to Ash. As Martha, pregnant with Ash's child (we see them having pretty banal, and--to Martha--unsatisfying sex earlier), prepares to create a new life, she practices by bringing an old life (Ash) back. The synthetic version of Ash is eerily servile and literal-minded, but he is also an improvement on the "real" Ash in some ways. For example, he is a much more satisfying and skilled lover, something that delights and also discomfits Martha. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">By making the creator figure a woman and the object a man, Charlie Brooker, the writer, highlights the importance of gender in creation stories in a way that is ultimately far more interesting than Garland's patriarchal "Ex Machina." Martha "creates" Ash just after she discovers that she is pregnant, and key moments of bonding with the synthetic Ash occur alongside hallmarks of her pregnancy, like when she shares the first sonogram image with the disembodied AI Ash. Brooker juxtaposes the narrative of natural creation (pregnancy, baby) with artificial creation (synthetic human replacement) and asks, how are we responsible for what we create? Martha grows to regret her synthetic creation, but she cannot destroy or abandon it. Part of the reason why is hinted in the poignant coda, which shows that the synthetic Ash is still "alive," but banished to the attic, where he is visited once a year by Martha's other creation, her daughter. This "father" is the only father her daughter will know. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">*Of course, Domhnall Gleeson is the sacrificial Caleb in "Ex Machina." </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-12302356691025387592015-09-26T19:31:00.000-04:002015-09-29T18:07:14.560-04:00Animals & Machines<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">St. Thomas Aquinas, in <i>Summa contra Gentiles</i>, compared animals to machines--lacking reason, animals behave in a prescribed sequence of actions, much like how a crossbow bolt is propelled forward by the force of the bow. What, I wonder, would he make of these animals, from various species, that attack drones? </span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PIU2rfJaiks" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I suppose he might take it as further evidence for the similarity between animals and machines. But then there are the cats who have figured out how to use Roombas as mobile cat beds. Crows aren't the only animals who've figure out how to use tools...</span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A0Z79ycisDU" width="560"></iframe>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-1093118190960355582015-07-12T16:19:00.000-04:002015-07-12T16:19:22.667-04:00Six And A Half Ways of Being Undead in "Game of Thrones"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/557e37f869bedd03494471c0-1200-667/jon%20snow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/557e37f869bedd03494471c0-1200-667/jon%20snow.jpg" height="176" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=is+jon+snow+dead&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=is+jon+snow+really+dead" target="_blank">Is Jon Snow really dead?</a> That is the question that has been on <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/06/jon-snow-alive-game-of-thrones-comic-con" target="_blank">everyone's minds </a>since the finale of Season 5 (or since the end of ADWD)--including <a href="http://www.ew.com/article/2015/07/10/game-thrones-obama" target="_blank">President Obama's</a>. D. B. Weiss has said that Snow won't be back--<a href="http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/game-of-thrones-jon-snow-dead-finale-season-five-kit-harington-1201519627/" target="_blank">"Dead is dead,"</a> quoth he. But of course, the learned reader knows that this phrase appears on <a href="https://us-east.manta.joyent.com/condenast/public/vf/production/2015/06/23/5589aa5aca2dc24e4d270365_image1-2.JPG" target="_blank">the first page</a> of <i>A Game of Thrones</i>, spoken by Gared, one of the Rangers. Royce responds, "But are they dead? What proof have we?" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Indeed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In fact, there are a number of ways to come back from the dead on GoT, as we've seen since the pilot episode. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">1) <a href="http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Wights" target="_blank">Wights</a>, the risen dead in thrall to the White Walkers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">2) <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Mirri_Maz_Duur" target="_blank">Mirri Maz Duur's</a> resurrection of Khal Drogo.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">3) <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Beric_Dondarrion" target="_blank">Beric Dondarrion's</a> resurrections by Thoros of Myr.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">4) Those who seek death in the <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/House_of_Black_and_White" target="_blank">House of Black and White</a> live again when the Faceless Men use their identities. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">4.5) <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Qyburn" target="_blank">Qyburn</a> "saves" The Mountain from death (or brings him back?) and turns him into something...else.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Book bonus:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">5) <a href="http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Aeron_Greyjoy" target="_blank">Aeron "Damphair" Greyjoy</a> serves the Drowned God as a priest, after he was drowned and resuscitated. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">6) <a href="http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Varamyr" target="_blank">Varamyr Sixskins</a>, a warg, who lives on after his human death in his wolf One-Eye.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Any other examples?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-4295330534001523602015-04-02T13:09:00.003-04:002015-04-02T13:09:20.594-04:00Out of Time: Outlander's Medievalism<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"Outlander,"* the captivating historical fantasy/romance based on the series by Diana Gabaldon, has a lot going on: a charismatic, capable <a href="http://tomandlorenzo.com/2015/03/how-outlander-finally-won-us-over/" target="_blank">hero</a>; a gorgeous <a href="http://www.outlandertvnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/10310998_755526621173216_3691092452272053869_n.jpg" target="_blank">love interest</a> (or <a href="http://aggressivecomix.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Outlander_Cast_Frank_420x560.jpg" target="_blank">two</a>); a terrifying <a href="http://www.outlandertvnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/10394040_724777430914802_2989002073842303637_n.jpg" target="_blank">villain</a>; serpentine <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobite_rising_of_1745" target="_blank">political machinations</a>; <a href="http://www.terrydresbach.com/james-fraser/" target="_blank">textile porn</a>; <a href="http://www.thehighlandtimes.com/Glencoe-Highland-Scotland.jpg" target="_blank">lush scenery</a>; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTSNjiZg53I" target="_blank">sex</a>; and an <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jenny-trout/outlander-and-the-female-_b_5859154.html" target="_blank">unprecedented</a> <a href="http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/outlander-wedding-209476" target="_blank">commitment</a> to the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/29/outlander-wedding_n_5896284.html" target="_blank">female</a> <a href="https://overland.org.au/2014/10/the-radical-romantic-female-gaze-of-outlander/" target="_blank">gaze</a>.</span> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And something else: medievalism. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The medievalism of "Outlander" is there from the outset. Thoroughly modern Claire Beauchamp Randall and her urbane, ardent husband, Frank, venture to the Scottish Highlands for their second honeymoon. In the pilot episode, Claire's (and Frank's) modernity is emphasized over and over again...and especially when she suggests, with a few glances and a tantalizing lack of undergarments, that her husband go down on her in an abandoned castle<i> </i>(he agrees with enthusiasm). Their egalitarian partnership--sexual and otherwise--and Claire's full autonomy are highlighted against the gloomy medieval backdrop, which itself dates from a time when, supposedly, women were little more than chattel and had no autonomy of their own. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Later, Claire steps through the standing stones at Craigh na Dun and is thrown back in time, to 1743. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The first thing that happens to her in 1743 is that she's almost raped by a British soldier and the second thing that happens is that she's rescued by a Scot and then taken prisoner--confirming the notion (for the audience and for Claire) that the past is a dangerous place for women. A mysterious local woman, Geillis Duncan, later warns Claire that the Highlands are no place for a woman alone; this warning stands in stark contrast to Claire's memories of the work she did as a nurse on the front lines in WWII, separated from her husband by their respective war duties. B</span>y the end of the episode, she ends up at the same castle--Castle Leoch--where she and Frank had their intimate interlude. Only now, Castle Leoch isn't abandoned. It's the bustling seat of Clan Mackenzie and Claire's new home/prison.</span><br />
<a href="http://i1.wp.com/royalcentral.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/14531219453_379df8f2ed_k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i1.wp.com/royalcentral.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/14531219453_379df8f2ed_k.jpg" height="195" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Claire's an Englishwoman in the Highlands, a <i>sassenach</i> (foreigner), and her Scots hosts (or captors) are suspicious of her for that reason. Her asynchrony is her secret, something that only she--and the audience--can know.** Claire's "out-of-time-ness" drives much of the plot: her attempts to escape her Scots guards and evade the sadistic British captain who tried to rape her and return to Frank, and her knowledge of the Jacobite Rising of 1745, which virtually destroyed much of the distinctive Highland culture. The audience learns, through voice over and flashback (or is it flash-forward?), that after the Battle of Culloden in 1745, the Highland clans were broken and their language--Gaelic--forbidden by the British. For Claire and for the audience, the outcome of the Rising is both history <i>and</i> foreknowledge, and Claire's anachronism gives rise to nostalgia for a way of life that will soon be lost.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That way of life, which Claire--and the audience--get to know over several episodes, is distinctly medieval, uninterrupted for centuries. Collum Mackenzie, the laird (or lord) of the clan lives in a castle; his brother, Dougal, is a war-chieftain. Collum has a harper in his service, just like in days of yore. Claire acts as a healer, or Beaton, to the residents of Castle Leoch, and her disgust at the filthy and barbaric implements and remedies that her predecessor used highlights the "medieval" medicine available at the time. She attends the Gathering, when all of the laird's tenants come to the castle to pledge their fealty with solemn vow, and celebrate with games, drinking, and a boar hunt, and she saves a young boy from the clutches of the fanatical and benighted Father Bain by diagnosing him with accidental poisoning rather than demonic possession. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Dougal and the
men-at-arms (including Jamie) collect the annual rents from the laird's
tenants. Despite the fact that specie is widely used, the Mackenzie
tenants often pay their rent in livestock, grain, or other goods. The women in one of the settlements chant songs that have come down through generations of women, going back hundreds of years. </span>The laird's man of law, Ned Gowan, admits to Claire that he came to the Highlands from tame, civilized Edinburgh in search of wilderness and adventure. The English soldiers that Claire meets in Brockton call the Scots uncivilized, brutish, and wild--not because they live in the Highlands, but because they live in the past. Their loyalty is to their local laird, not their distant king; they wear kilts instead of trousers; they speak Gaelic instead of English; they live in crofts and villages, rather than towns and cities. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.tvgoodness.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/gathering3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.tvgoodness.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/gathering3.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The trope of the Scottish Highlands as an untamed, uncivilized wilderness goes back to the Middle Ages, when Latin writers posited that Scotland (and Ireland) were at the far edges of the inhabited world, and were home to monsters, wild men, and forbidding topography and landscapes. "Outlander" dramatizes that trope and updates it, so that the Highlanders become medieval people living in the Georgian period, just as out of time as Claire. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* Talking about the tv show in this post, not the books.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">** For now. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-75383753013074915292015-02-23T23:48:00.000-05:002015-02-23T23:48:52.914-05:00Vikings: They Do Things Differently There<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.strangehistory.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/maeshowe-dragon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.strangehistory.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/maeshowe-dragon.jpg" height="320" width="269" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Viking graffiti found in Orkney</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.history.com/shows/vikings/about" target="_blank">"Vikings,"</a> the History Channel's scripted drama, just <a href="http://effyeahvikings.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">returned</a> for its third season. <a href="https://mediaevalmusings.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/history-tv-first-voyage-with-vikings/" target="_blank">Many</a> <a href="https://deadliestblogpage.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/hollywood-vs-history-the-vikings-on-history-channel/" target="_blank">others</a> have written about the many <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2014/may/23/vikings-review-history-channel-game-of-thrones" target="_blank">historical antecedents</a> and <a href="http://www.fearfulsymmetry.net/?p=2051" target="_blank">inaccuracies</a>, exactly how <a href="http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a23865/vikings-tv-review/" target="_blank">metal</a> the show is, and the <a href="http://spectator.org/articles/33770/history-channel-gets-vikings-precisely-wrong" target="_blank">political ideology</a> behind the show. Despite the fact that the show airs on a channel called The History Channel, I find discussions of accuracy to be pointless. "Vikings" is a scripted drama, not a multi-series documentary about The Viking Age (NB: VPs of programming: I'd watch that, too), and, besides, The History Channel isn't that concerned with peer review or even <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=history+channel+errors&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8" target="_blank">historicity</a> in much of its programming. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">There's plenty about the show that I don't care for (total absence of suspense, tedious love stories, gaping plot holes), but what I love about it is its total commitment to medievalism. The Vikings speak in what sounds like Old Norse, the Anglo-Saxons speak Old English. Aethelstan and his brethren labor in the scriptorium, copying ancient texts and making art to glorify Christianity. Enlightened characters, like Aethelstan and Ecgbert, have heard of the Romans and their achievements, while the common folk believe that giants once ruled England. The blood eagle makes an appearance (just like in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/books/review/White-t.html?_r=0" target="_blank">"Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned"</a>), Charlemagne and Offa are name-checked, and everyone is <a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/85/ff/ab/85ffab1dba5d0ee50dfc046d521258e6.jpg" target="_blank">dirty</a> (except for the enlightened King Ecgbert, who bathes regularly). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And yet the show is so good at presenting the Northmen and Anglo-Saxons of the late 8th and early 9th centuries as just similar enough to us to be sympathetic, but strange enough to be compelling. I think Aristotle meant something else when he said that drama should be "transporting," but I still argue that "Vikings" transports the viewer to a very different time and place. The show looks good--the settlements, homesteads, and even great shrines (like Winchester) are small and poky, the great halls are big, smoky, and filled with people and animals. The women wear the same style of ornaments that I saw in York, Edinburgh, and London at different Viking exhibits. More importantly, the Northmen on the show are riveting and alien. They are motivated by different things from the viewers (and also the Anglo-Saxons)--the potency of their beliefs and rituals echoes throughout episodes like "A King's Ransom" and "Sacrifice" (dealing with burial and ritual sacrifice, respectively), but also in the repeated insistence on fate, the desire of the Northmen to die in battle, and their gender relations. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The writers have admittedly drawn on some great historical source material: <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1150/1150-h/1150-h.htm" target="_blank">Saxo Grammaticus</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=ibn+fadlan&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8" target="_blank">Ibn Fadlan's</a> account of his time among the Rus, sagas, <a href="http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/xanten1.html" target="_blank">annals</a>, and skaldic poetry. But I wonder about another, uncredited source: <a href="http://www.medievalrobots.org/2011/08/past-perfect-king-hereafter.html" target="_blank"><i>King Hereafter</i></a>. Ragnar reminds me of Thorfinn: His watchfulness, his soul-friendship with Aethelstan, his dry wit ("looks like your god really came through for you"), his gift for military and political strategy, and his gift for foresight are all qualities that he has in common with Thorfinn. Even Ragnar's complex relationship with Flokí is somewhat reminiscent of the dynamic between Thorfinn and Rognvald (without the homoeroticism). Perhaps the third season will bring more similarities between their storylines: Ragnar will reign and, like Thorfinn, will journey farther afield (perhaps <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangian_Guard" target="_blank">Constantinople</a> instead of Rome), have his faith in his gods tested, and eventually die in single combat and be called to Valhalla. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-62680120447259134672015-02-05T15:32:00.001-05:002015-02-05T15:32:35.140-05:00You Must Change Your Life with Norse Paganism<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">News of Iceland's <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/02/iceland-temple-norse-gods-1000-years" target="_blank">first temple to the Norse pantheon</a> to be built in the last millennium arrived in my inbox the same week that I started trying to wrap my brain around Peter Sloterdijk's work (<i><a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gsd.harvard.edu%2Fimages%2Fcontent%2F5%2F5%2F553631%2F30.Sloterdijk.pdf&ei=VcTSVNedEO_isASDoICwBw&usg=AFQjCNEU7MdjsWtwU4MZQIcAUUJtqAJvJw&sig2=NAlKYoWIV4We6X4BMqsOuA&bvm=bv.85464276,d.cWc" target="_blank">Spheres</a> </i>and <a href="http://politybooks.com/book.asp?ref=9780745649214" target="_blank"><i>You Must Change Your Life</i></a>). The neo-pagans of Ásatrúarfélagið explicitly eschew literal belief in the myths of the pantheon. The temple will be the space for numerous life-cycle events, as well as the celebration of seasonal festivals. The temple itself will be circular, dug into a hillside, and topped with a dome. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Like I said, I've had Sloterdijk on my mind...so I was tickled to read about the creation of a literal sphere as a place of religious worship. Spheres are Sloterdijk's model of the three "ages" of human existence (nested spheres inside one giant sphere; the terraquaeous globe; microspheres and "global foams"). And he contends that religion does not exist; instead, what we think of as religion is the misshapen, stunted distortion of poorly understood "spiritual regimens," in other words, religion is a bad translation of practices or habits that lead to transcendence. And since humans can never inhabit the exterior, only the interior, constructing the interior is what creates transcendence. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The neo-pagans in Iceland explicitly reject the literality Old Norse beliefs in favor of creating a sphere of community (in the form of ritual, celebration, and ways to understand the world) based on the practices that Old Norse myths reveal. I hope their praxis and their new spherical interior lead them to transcendence, as Sloterdijk contends. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-24543693912800478832014-12-13T17:29:00.001-05:002015-02-05T15:33:25.210-05:00Forthcoming from the Press of the University of Pennsylvania...<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15383.html" target="_blank">Medieval Robots</a>: Mechanism, Magic, Nature and Art. June 2015, in print and digital format. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-10293573536807726372014-11-30T19:07:00.001-05:002015-02-05T15:33:02.865-05:00Do You Know?<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">You either know about <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/24/reviews/001224.24malcolt.html" target="_blank">Dorothy Dunnett</a>, or you don't. If you know, it's because you either have read and adored her books, or because you have a loved one whom you periodically lose to others in interminable conversations about the comparable merits of The Lymond Chronicles and the House of Niccolo. If you don't know about her, it's because you've been unlucky thus far. That ends now. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Dunnett" target="_blank">Dunnett</a> is the best novelist you've never heard of. She's usually mentioned alongside <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_O%27Brian" target="_blank">Patrick O'Brian</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Renault" target="_blank">Mary Renault</a>, and that's because her novels are historical fiction. But in terms of characterization and detail she's like Dickens, and the swashbuckling scope of her novels recalls Dumas, Hugo, and her compatriot, Walter Scott. Francis Crawford of Lymond, the protagonist of The Lymond Chronicles, was just named the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-30227438" target="_blank">most popular</a> character of Scottish fiction. Half Peter Wimsey, half Scarlet Pimpernel, Lymond moves seamlessly through the capitals of early modern Europe: Edinburgh, London, Moscow, Istanbul, and Paris. The House of Niccolo takes place a century earlier, and in wider scope, from the Faroe Islands to the Gambia, Danzig to Caffa. I discovered Dunnett as a teenager, and have returned to her novels every other year since then. The medieval robots I've spent the last fifteen years contemplating first appeared to me in her books.*</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* <i>The Spring of the Ram</i> (Al-Jazari's elephant clock); <i>To Lie with Lions</i> (Hesdin); <i>Pawn in Frankincense</i> (horological spinet).</span><br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-18647687665660666972014-08-14T15:29:00.000-04:002014-08-14T20:11:44.518-04:00The Dung Heap of History<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The past is shit. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This is what I learned on a recent trip to the UK. I happened to be in York during the filming of the pilot of <a href="http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-06-19/breaking-bad-and-mad-men-production-team-film-grizzly-tv-drama-in-york" target="_blank">"Knifeman,"</a> a new AMC drama about a controversial 18th-century medical figure. The production team used the Shambles (the oldest street in York) and the area around the Minster to stand in for Georgian London. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Although the book on which the tv show is based claims it is about the birth of "modern surgery,"* f</span>ar from looking "modern," the extras all looked as pre-modern and disgusting as possible: muddy clothes, bad teeth, and dirty faces and fingernails. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">(*Someone better tell the people making <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2937900/" target="_blank">"The Knick"</a> that "modern surgery" started two centuries earlier.) </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Later, I went to the <a href="http://jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk/" target="_blank">Jorvik Viking Center</a></span>,<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> and learned all about the Vikings. I learned about their incredible long-distance trade and kinship networks; their love of finery, such as imported silk, amber, carnelian, and gold; and their scientific expertise. I also learned that they were giant poopers; viz. this massive human turd (this is apparently a sponsored object, and is officially known as the "Lloyds Bank Coprolite"), unearthed by archaeologists several decades ago</span>. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Lloydsbankcoprolite_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Lloydsbankcoprolite_001.jpg" height="292" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">But that's not all: The ride through the recreated streets of Viking York (complete with fabulous and creepy life-size automata)</span> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">concludes by passing a man straining in the privy, complete with vocal and intestinal sound effects.</span> <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Later, on a trip to the Roman fort, Housesteads, along Hadrian's Wall, the first thing our guide showed us was the well-preserved latrine. Her prop was a sponge on a stick, similar to the ones the Roman soldiers (and civilians? unclear) used to clean their bums after doing their business in the brown tent. A few days later, a fellow hotel guest, after learning what I do for a living, asked, "Why study the Middle Ages? Wasn't everyone just wading around in their own shit?" </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Why is there such a fixation on the dirtiness of the past? Certainly, human waste can reveal a lot of important information about diet and disease in a population. And <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Turtleback-Library-Binding-Edition/dp/0613685725" target="_blank">everyone poops</a>, after all. Latrines are no less interesting or important than bathhouses or aqueducts or temples. The focus on the privy in Viking York, the chamberpots of the 15th century (at <a href="http://barleyhall.co.uk/" target="_blank">Barley Hall</a>)</span> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">and the close stools of the 16th century (<a href="http://www.edinburghcastle.gov.uk/" target="_blank">Edinburgh Castle</a>), and Roman latrines can, at first glance, be a way to close the temporal gap between then and now, between them and us.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">But the focus on plumbing, hygiene, and bathing is also a way to widen that gap, to say that people in the past were more primitive and less intelligent than we are; that their tolerance for filth and dirt was higher than ours because they didn't know any better, not because they didn't have the same options that some of us have now. This false sense of superiority is what Monty Python brilliantly sends up in this clip from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."</span><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/mkrBdaGp-Cw?rel=0" width="420"></iframe>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Here's what else I learned on my trip. Yes, our guide in Barley Hall, Master Paul, showed us the chamber pot. But he made sure to discuss the stringent regulations in 15th-century York that governed the disposal of waste (human, animal, and manufacturing). Contrary to popular belief, people did not fling the contents of their chamberpots out of the window and onto the street (especially after the 14th-century plague pandemic). The Neolithic (ca. 3200-2500 BCE) settlement at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skara_Brae" target="_blank">Skara Brae</a>, in Orkney, contains an elaborate system of drains to wash away household and human waste, and each of the small houses contains a small "necessary room." Over 5000 years ago, Stone Age people, using stone tools,<i> built an entire village with indoor plumbing.</i> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In many ways, people who lived long ago were the same as we are. They had less sophisticated tools, but not less sophisticated minds. We'd do well to remind ourselves of that, and to extend that same compassion to the millions of people in the world now who live amidst sewage, effluvium, and garbage. Contempt for those on the dung heap of history can so easily be transposed to contempt for those on the dung heap of global poverty. But most people don't want to live in their own filth. If they do, it's not because they're ignorant or irrational or subhuman, it's because they don't have another option.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-27033086786313997192014-08-05T21:47:00.001-04:002015-02-05T15:33:58.935-05:00Railing against Inequality<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Rail travel is making a comeback. Not actual rail travel (at least in the United States), but fictional<i> </i>rail travel. Dystopic rail travel.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130720220142/thehungergames/images/c/ca/Trains.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130720220142/thehungergames/images/c/ca/Trains.png" height="166" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Katniss on her way to the Capitol.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> A very special train, Snowpiercer (<i>Le Transperceniege</i> in the original <i>bédé</i>) is the vehicle for the continuation of humanity in the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706620/" target="_blank">film</a> (and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/transperceneige-Romans-suivre-French-Edition/dp/2203334185" target="_blank"><i>bédé</i></a>), and also for the continuation of economic stratification under global capitalism. In the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games_trilogy" target="_blank">Mockingjay</a> trilogy, Katniss, Peeta, Haymitch, and Effie travel throughout Panem via luxury rail. Both dystopian sci-fi narratives examine economic and political oppression and injustice, income inequality (a bloodless phrase for a life-or-death fact of life for so many people), and the immoral decadence of the wealthy few at the expense of the impoverished many. And in both, the extravagant railway cars, gourmet food, sumptuous furnishings, and <a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2013/7/9/1373364150080/Snowpiercer-trailer-4-010.jpg" target="_blank">spectacular amenities</a> clearly convey the gulf between the starving, dirty, huddled masses and the privileged few who get to to enjoy them. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Locomotives, or trains, first appeared in the middle of the 19th century, but they didn't really begin to incorporate high-end luxe amenities for first-class passengers until railway travel became more widespread in general, at the end of the 19th century. The opulence of long-distance trains, such as <a href="http://www.belmond.com/venice-simplon-orient-express/cabins" target="_blank">The Orient Express</a>, is legendary: servants, fine china and crystal, sterling silver, <a href="http://www.belmond.com/venice-simplon-orient-express/dining" target="_blank">elaborate meals</a>, and plush carriages for those wealthy, often upper-class, passengers who could afford a first-class ticket. And for the rest? Trains, like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic" target="_blank">ocean liners</a>, are large enough to make the gulf between first-class and third-class passengers impossible to cross. Although it's not easy to use an airplane bathroom in first-class if you're traveling in economy class, one still shuffles through the first- and business-class (and economy "plus") seats on the way to those awful seats in the last row that don't recline, and the crafty economy air traveler can swipe a pillow or a blanket from an unused seat. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">As a mass transportation technology, trains are better able to convey vast differences in passenger status than airplanes (or any flying transport). Their length makes it possible to have different entrances, different amenities, and different experiences for passengers, according to the cost of the ticket. And they hark back to the Gilded Age of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, when the gulf between the haves and the have-nots was similar to what it is <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/may/08/thomas-piketty-new-gilded-age/" target="_blank">now</a>. No wonder that the creators of genre books and films have turned to them to realize a vision of a dystopic society that looks a lot like later-capitalist modernity. And no wonder that they're thriving <a href="http://www.irtsociety.com/trains.php" target="_blank">today</a>.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-80433843301912574662014-06-30T16:41:00.000-04:002014-06-30T16:41:29.602-04:00Mystery Makers<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I recently saw <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/theater/the-mysteries-retells-the-bible-at-the-flea-theater.html" target="_blank">"The Mysteries"</a>--back for an extended run--at <a href="http://www.theflea.org/show_detail.php?page_type=0&show_id=146" target="_blank">The Flea Theater</a> in New York. The play is actually 52 short plays, by 48 playwrights, that comprise an updated version of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Mystery_Plays" target="_blank">York Mystery Play Cycle</a></span>--<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">a Middle English group of 48 plays depicting the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis through Revelations.* </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Like late medieval mystery cycles, which could unfold over many hours or even days, "The Mysteries" takes about six hours, and includes two longish intervals (with food served). Although the production includes a lot of things that the Middle English versions leave out (nudity, swearing, sex, blasphemy) and lacks the "mysteries" (theatrical machinery) that made the plays so stunning in the late Middle Ages, "The Mysteries" feels medieval. The plays and most of the performances are colloquial but not naturalistic; and just as in the medieval period, the stories of the Bible are transformed and translated for a general audience whose familiarity with the lessons of the Bible might be patchy, at best. The meal breaks and general conviviality at The Flea seems medieval (or do I mean "medieval"?), as well. Pageants were often performed during festivals and fairs, and with plenty of food stalls around. Eating dinner and dessert with my fellow theater-goers and chatting to the actors provided a shared sense of fellowship and community that is also <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/A_Common_Stage.html?id=YH-OIV0hhTAC" target="_blank">central</a> to certain kinds of medieval drama. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"The Mysteries" runs through July 14, and there are usually rush tickets available for $35. It's transporting. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* These plays, or pageants, often included complicated theatrical machinery to produce stunning effects. For example, shipwrights' guilds would produce a mechanical whale for the story of Jonah and the whale, or an artificial storm and an ark for the story of Noah and the Flood. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-82231368232401658862014-01-27T19:51:00.000-05:002014-01-27T19:51:12.179-05:00Do People Even Like Robots?<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It's nice to be able to invite a guest to your wedding and know that he or she isn't going to <a href="http://youtu.be/NUJVU87Qb7A" target="_blank">make a terrible speech</a> or t<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2354850/The-bridesmaid-threw-bride-AND-cake--groom-urinated-water-pitchers-The-horrific-wedding-horror-stories-revealed.html" target="_blank">hrow up on the wedding cake</a>. On the other hand, it's also nice to be able to invite a guest to your wedding and know that he or she isn't going to make the other guests feel awkward and uncomfortable, merely by showing up. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This is the dilemma posed by robot wedding guests, and I learned about this thanks to the recent <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/fashion/weddings/i-now-present-mr-and-mrs-jetson.html" target="_blank">article in the "Vows"</a> section of the New York Times. Ideally, the robots act as telepresence proxies for guests who can't attend, but still want to be a part of the festivities (although at least one enterprising couple had a robot officiate the ceremony). Of course, the downside is that people still aren't that comfortable interacting with robots, so once the novelty wears off they are largely ignored. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="271" data-total-count="8058" itemprop="articleBody">
<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">As
men pulled their dates to the dance floor in Australia, Mr. O’Neill
watched from Canada sitting at his computer dressed in a suit with a
beer in hand, and was able to see what was happening only right in front
of the seat where his brothers had propped up the robot.</span></i></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="142" data-total-count="8200" itemprop="articleBody">
<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“I
was unconsciously turning my head to talk to people and realizing I’m
in a cold, dark basement and it’s 1 in the morning,” he said.</span></i></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="142" data-total-count="8200" itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="142" data-total-count="8200" itemprop="articleBody">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This reminded me of the first episode of season 5 of <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/30/the_good_wife_season_premiere_it_s_the_best_technology_show_on_tv.html" target="_blank">The Good Wife</a>. I think the callous behavior that the LG employees show toward "Monica" (a co-worker who interfaces with the firm via telepresence robot)</span><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">emphasizes both the way that certain technologies destabilize social norms and disrupt communication (even--or perhaps especially--if that technology is supposed to enhance communication) and the generally toxic environment at LG.</span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="142" data-total-count="8200" itemprop="articleBody">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="142" data-total-count="8200" itemprop="articleBody">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Compare these examples, in which the human-robot interactions never become truly functional or integrated, with "Robot & Frank," in which the robot and protagonist forge a bond that is as emotionally complex as the one that Frank has with his children. It may be that "The Good Wife" is simply a more accurate reflection of how people feel about robots right now, and "Robot & Frank" is speculative fiction about a near-future in which robots are a little more responsive, a little more common.</span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="142" data-total-count="8200" itemprop="articleBody">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="142" data-total-count="8200" itemprop="articleBody">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">More interesting still is that the telepresence robot in "The Good Wife" and some of the examples in the NYT article strongly resemble the descriptions of the wheeled tripodal servants that Haphaestus forged to serve the gods on Mt. Olympus. Indeed, perhaps our longstanding association between <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/edgar-wright-the-worlds-end-interview.html" target="_blank">"robots" and "servants/slaves"</a> is what makes us react to robotic avatars with discomfort, since they violate that association. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-90666905508015577172013-12-16T13:11:00.000-05:002013-12-16T13:11:48.462-05:00Humanities in Crisis, Medieval Style<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The humanities are in crisis! The crisis <a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/11/19/humanities-crisis-mad-libs/" target="_blank">seems to be</a> that the number of students who choose to study humanities subjects in college is in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/11/04/the-fate-of-the-humanities/predictable-changes-for-the-humanities-were-ignored" target="_blank">steep decline</a>, as more students pursue majors in professional fields, like business, or <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/11/04/the-fate-of-the-humanities/humanities-and-science-must-work-together" target="_blank">STEM subjects</a>, because these subjects are widely seen by students to be <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/11/04/the-fate-of-the-humanities/humanities-decline-that-makes-economic-sense" target="_blank">better job training</a>. <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/the-real-humanities-crisis/?_r=0" target="_blank">Some argue</a> that this is because our society has devalued creative and culturally generative work</span>.<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> T</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">o <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/11/04/the-fate-of-the-humanities/we-ignore-scholarship-at-our-peril" target="_blank">some</a>, the narrow focus on employment and earnings is cause for lament and alarm. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/opinion/the-humanities-in-crisis-not-at-most-schools.html" target="_blank">Others</a> suggest that the decline is overstated, and that the humanities had a brief, <a href="http://theamericanscholar.org/the-decline-of-the-english-department/#.Uq86Yo01xxM" target="_blank">anomalous</a> post-war period of popularity. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.medievalists.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/424px-Codex_Manesse_Schulmeister_von_Esslingen-212x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.medievalists.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/424px-Codex_Manesse_Schulmeister_von_Esslingen-212x300.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">There are, I imagine, as many <a href="http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/09/invigorating-the-humanities" target="_blank">suggestions</a> for how to reverse this crisis as there are proposed reasons for its cause. I merely want to point out that this brief "golden age" of interest in the humanities, followed by a period of greater interest in professional training has happened before...at the outset of the first universities in Europe. In the twelfth century, the great cathedral schools at Chatres and Orléans placed particular emphasis on ancient literature and neoplatonist philosophy</span>. <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In these places, "the spirit of a real humanism showed itself in an enthusiastic study of ancient authors and in the production of Latin verse of a really remarkable quality."* But this humanistic renaissance was ultimately short lived</span>,<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> as interest in the science of logic and the professional fields of law and medicine prevailed over interest in literature and philosophy. John of Salisbury, in the late twelfth century, complained that the logic masters knew almost nothing of literature. Fifty years later, Henri d'Andeli, a French poet, wrote that "Logic has the students, whereas Grammar [literature] is reduced in numbers, Civil Law rode gorgeously and Canon Law rode haughtily ahead of all the other arts."* Medieval is the new modern, people!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">* Taken from C. H. Haskins, <i>The Rise of Universities</i>, ch. 2. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-15135193876223439092013-12-13T20:44:00.000-05:002013-12-13T20:44:59.150-05:00The Year in Robots<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I've been doing some sifting through the year's news stories about robotics and robots to do a round-up post. But then I came across Lewis Black's segment on last night's Daily Show and thought, why bother? <embed allowfullscreen="true" allownetworking="all" allowscriptaccess="always" bgcolor="#000000" flashvars="autoPlay=false" height="247" src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:video:thedailyshow.com:431274" style="display: block;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="288" wmode="window"></embed></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-4010559511789948702013-11-27T16:41:00.002-05:002013-11-27T16:41:37.100-05:00Chess & Mind<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I recently started learning something new: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">chess. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/images/ps342892_l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.britishmuseum.org/images/ps342892_l.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Lewis Chessmen. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I never played it, I didn't know anyone who played it, and my total exposure to chess came from books and films in which people played chess (see:<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108065/" target="_blank"> Searching for Bobby Fischer</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109842/" target="_blank">Fresh</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymond_Chronicles" target="_blank">The Lymond Chronicles</a> (especially <i>Pawn in Frankincense</i>), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2149175/" target="_blank">The Americans</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0896529/" target="_blank">Cairo Time</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/" target="_blank">WarGames</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200276/" target="_blank">The West Wing</a>, etc.). In the cultural artifacts that introduced me to the game, it was always heralded as something really hard. When a character plays chess in a story, it tells the audience that the person (Fresh, Jed Bartlet, or Francis Crawford) playing is always several steps ahead of the people around them. Chess players think ahead, they can strategize, they can "see the whole board." And the mathematical nature of chess, especially (so I'm told) at its highest levels, lends itself to computational technology. (I vividly remember the Kasparov-Deep Blue matchup.) </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">But I confess that I'm confused about how and why chess became a yardstick for intelligence and, in some cases, for humanity, insofar as "human intelligence" is a proxy for what makes us uniquely human. Humans have been building calculating machines for <a href="http://www.medievalrobots.org/2011/12/holiday-gift-guide-for-watch-enthusiast.html" target="_blank">millennia</a>--even before chess was invented. Why is it that the element of human intelligence that is the *easiest* to reproduce with machinery became associated with chess, and used as a marker for intelligence itself? When did this start to happen? And what does this reveal about historical theories of mind and cognition--have they changed sufficiently over the past centuries to reveal any changes in terms of the importance chess as a measure of intellectual capability? </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231858625362640596.post-86535815856665738952013-11-08T14:17:00.000-05:002013-11-08T14:17:08.752-05:00Robots from Days Gone By<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Amazing automata from ye olden times have been cropping up everywhere recently! The New York Times recently ran an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/science/the-automatons-of-yesteryear.html?_r=0" target="_blank">article</a> about the creations of R. J. Wensley, a robotics engineer and inventor from the first half of the 20th century.* And then the folks at <a href="http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/11/the-writer-automata/" target="_blank">Colossal</a> got excited about Simon Schaeffer's recent (and fabulous) <a href="http://www.medievalrobots.org/2013/06/check-out-bbc-doc-mechanical-marvels.html" target="_blank">BBC documentary</a>, and a few of the 18th century automata that he profiles. One of these, <i><a href="http://youtu.be/T5sJuF3Gqmw" target="_blank">L'écrivain,</a> </i>is from the workshop of Pierre & Henri-Louis Jaquet-Droz<i>. </i>Adelheid Voskuhl has a recent piece in <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/22/roentgen_jaquet_droz_the_robots_of_the_enlightenment.html" target="_blank">Slate</a> about the importance of the Jaquet-Droz and other Enlightenment </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">automata.Voskuhl's argument, based on her recent (and fabulous) book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/022603402X/?tag=slatmaga-20" target="_blank"><i>Androids in the Enlightenment</i></a>, is that these luxury objects actually modeled new forms of civic engagement and social behavior by performing affective practices that were important to bourgeois and aristocratic Enlightenment culture. These automata, especially the piano-playing women that Voskuhl focuses on in her book, are conceptually similar to the 16th century praying <a href="http://www.medievalrobots.org/2011/06/ye-olde-replicants.html" target="_blank">monk</a>, commissioned by King Charles V of Spain, that demonstrated proper devotional practice, and to the imaginary figures from the Alabaster Chamber in the 12th-century <i>Roman de Troie</i>, which enacted and enforced courtly behavior.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
* <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">While I'm always happy to see Leonardo get name-checked, esp. in relation to early automata, it goes without saying that the *entire point of this blog* is to make it clear that these objects were imagined and built well before the fifteenth century.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0