The Shock Factor of Divine Revelation: A Philological Approach to Daniel 8 and 9

ABSTRACT

This article explores the story and plot of Daniel 8 and 9, and argues that the angel Gabriel assists Daniel in handling the shock factor associated with Divine revelation concerning a seemingly successful antichrist. A comparison of the Septuagint traditions with the Masoretic text this article shows that Daniel 8 and the later part of 9 present visions of an apparently successful blasphemous king and an initially unsuccessful Messiah, rulers against and for God respectively. The perplexities of the prophet about the apparent lack of fulfilment of earlier Divine revelation are part of the literary tension of the text. This article takes a philological approach to Daniel 8 and 9 as a literary unity passed on by a Judeo-Christian tradition and recognizing a unifying role of the Angel Gabriel in Biblical literature.     

Virtue language in historical scholarship: the cases of Georg Waitz,Gabriel Monod and Henri Pirenne

Historians of historiography have recently adopted the language of ‘epistemic virtues’ to refer to character traits believed to be conducive to good historical scholarship. While ‘epistemic virtues’ is a modern philosophical concept, virtues such as ‘objectivity’, ‘meticulousness’ and ‘carefulness’ historically also served as actors' categories. Especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, historians frequently used virtue language to describe what it took to be a ‘good’, ‘reliable’ or ‘professional’ scholar. Based on three European case studies—the German historian Georg Waitz (1813–86), his French pupil Gabriel Monod (1844–1912) and the Belgian historian Henri Pirenne (1862–1935)—this article argues that such virtues cannot neatly be classified as ‘epistemic’ ones. For what is characteristic about virtue language in historical scholarship around 1900 is an overlap or entanglement of epistemic, moral and political connotations. The virtues embodied by, or attributed to, Waitz, Monod and Pirenne were almost invariably aimed at epistemic, moral and political goods at once, though not always to the same degrees. Consequently, if ‘epistemic virtues’ is going to be a helpful category, it must not be interpreted in a strong sense (‘only epistemic’), but in a weak one (‘epistemic’ as one layer of meaning among others).     

Gabriel Hanotaux and French Grand Strategy, 1894–8

This article seeks to reappraise the strategic vision of Gabriel Hanotaux, the French Foreign Minister from 1894 to 1898. Most of the scholarship on Hanotaux has focused on his African policies, since shortly after he left office French and British forces engaged in a standoff at Fashoda on the Nile, marking the nadir of pre-war Franco-British relations. This article moves beyond Africa and argues that Hanotaux's foreign policy had a global dimension, particularly apparent in China, and that this is essential to understanding French grand strategy in the period. At the same time, though, Hanotaux's main focus remained European. His interest in the wider world was meant to serve European ends, not least in enabling him to manage the Franco-Russian alliance, France's most important pre-war diplomatic alignment. Hanotaux's political position, though, was weak, and this inhibited the execution of his grand strategy. Moreover, the constraints under which he operated facilitated the continuities that existed between his policy and that of his generally more esteemed successor, Théophile Delcassé.     

Benjamin Franklin,Georges‐louis le rouge and the Franklin/Folger chart of the gulf stream

Abstract: While in Paris as minister to the French court, Benjamin Franklin arranged for the production of a French version of his famous chart of the Gulf Stream, which had been based on a sketch by Timothy Folger and first printed in London c. February, 1769. This paper recounts Franklin's collaboration with the Parisian cartographer Georges‐Louis Le Rouge from their first meeting in 1780, and pieces together the history of the Le Rouge chart. Two open questions have been when the chart was engraved, and whether its purpose was primarily military, commercial or scientific. Evidence suggests that it was produced for French merchant and packet captains in the months following the end of the American War of Independence.     

The Murders in Maupassant's “En Voyage”

The term futurism was used in aesthetic circles during the first decade of the twentieth century throughout Europe. The broad use of the term has sometimes led to critical attempts to link the various "futurisms" together into a coherent whole. In my article, I compare and contrast Alomar's Catalan futurism with the Italian futurism associated with Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944). Although the two futurisms share the name and, to some extent, similar philosophical backgrounds, their foundational documents or manifestos are more different than they are similar, and Alomar's futurism cannot and should not be critically subordinated to Marinetti's Italian one. My article addresses what is futurist in Alomar's thought as well as its unique regionalist underpinnings that find no analogue in other European futurisms.     

Wissenschaftliche Photographie als visuelle Kultur. Die Erforschung und Dokumentation von Spektren

This paper discusses facets of 19th‐century scientific photography as a visual culture. The example of spectral research and documentation is particularly well suited, because prismatically diffracted light from the sun or from luminous gases was one of the most frequently examined phenomena of that century. The results were significant not only for physics but also for analytical chemistry and astrophysics. The spectrum also served as an ideal test object for checking the effectiveness of a wide array of photochemically sensitizable surfaces to the various color regions. Scientific photography became the most important experimental technique in the infrared and ultraviolet. H. A. Rowland's spectrum charts are discussed as an example of the transition from comprehensiveness in documentation to fetishism. The discussion of the Lippmann process, one of the first methods of color photography, addresses the associated training of the eye. Issues of authenticity and the much averred ?mechanical objectivity”? are raised with regard to retouching. The overriding theme of visual science cultures leads furthermore to unanticipated interdependencies with other scientific fields, such as geography, and draws the importance of practitioners into the foreground.     

A little known atlas by Vesconte Maggiolo, 1518

ABSTRACT

The rediscovery of the Selden Map of China (MS Selden Supra 105) in the Bodleian Library in 2008 provides an opportunity to reassess the history of Chinese cartography and debates about maritime dimensions of the Ming Empire. The map depicts a network of Chinese shipping routes, reaching from Japan to Aceh, Sumatra, and suggests previously unknown map-making techniques. In this article I draw attention to the map's unique components, notably its portrayal of shipping routes and vegetation, consider its sources, and suggest a possible patron and location of composition.     

The Trade in Individual Maps from Ortelius’s Theatrum orbis terrarum after 1612

In 1612, following the death of the Antwerp print publisher Jan Baptist Vrients, Balthasar I and Jan Moretus II, at the time the managers of the Plantin Press, bought the copper plates used to print Abraham Ortelius’s Theatrum orbis terrarium, together with the remainder of Vrients’s stock of the atlas. Subsequently, they reissued various editions of the Theatrum, selling them under their own names. They also traded in individual maps from the Theatrum, printing more when necessary. Hundreds of maps were sent to clients all over Europe. This article gives an overview of this so far unknown distribution of Ortelius’s maps in the first half of the seventeenth century.     

Frank Clifford Rose Memorial Lecture: The tale of three trephines: Surgeons and their surgical-instrument makers in Britain,France, and America in the nineteenth century

ABSTRACT

Trephines and trepanning date to ancient times, but a “modern” form of instruments was codified by the seventeenth century. This did not preclude efforts to “improve” the trephine in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Surgeons and instrument makers in Britain (Jardine and Savigny), France (Thomson and Charrière), and America (Galt and Otto & Reynders) endeavored to make the trephine safer and more precise. In exploring their interactions, this presentation shows the evolving role of the instrument makers not only as fabricators of tools, but as creative design collaborators of surgeons and physicians.