Begging Letters: Tin Trunk Literacy and the Empathy Economy of Tristan da Cunha,c. 1909–39

European colonialism fostered ‘radically constrained’ literacies in the global south dominated by the epistolary form produced by ‘tin trunk literati’ frequently scribing as amanuenses for collectives. Literacy on the British mid-South Atlantic island colony of Tristan da Cunha was marginal to the nineteenth century male exchange economy and consequently relegated to the female domestic sphere. With the shift from sail to steam in trans-oceanic shipping at the turn of the twentieth century the male exchange economy vanished and female literacy acquired a vital new importance in the creation and maintenance of an empathy economy with the Atlantic mainlands generating the manufactured imports essential to the colony’s survival. The low literacy level and new dependence for subsistence on writing undermined the patriarchal authority of ‘headmen’ and gave a small group of female amanuenses effective political power on the island. The latter worked hard to maintain their newfound power by thwarting repeated metropolitan attempts to spread literacy or socialise the island economy and fostering fear and ignorance of the outside world among the islanders. The profoundly conservative and even oppressive nature of ‘functional literacy’ on Tristan da Cunha in the first half of the twentieth century provides a corrective to the emancipatory claims made for ‘tin trunk literacy’ elsewhere in the global south.     

What is in a word? Neuron: Early usage and evolution in antiquity to its long-lasting current significance

Neuron, a Greek term with a rustic background, made much of its way to its current significance since antiquity, when full recognition was achieved that sensory and motor signals travel through the animal body along nerves (neura, plural). Drawing from classic and recent historical scholarship, this study identifies the successive steps toward such a major breakthrough, starting from the usage of the expression in archaic times and continuing up to the much later transference of a mature theory into the modern world. It is shown that four main consecutive stages may be distinguished in the process: (a) incorporation of the word into early anatomical terminology; (b) theorizing on material composition, origin, properties, and role of the neura in animal bodies; (c) functional association of the neura with a transmitting vehicle; (d) identification of true anatomical and physiological correspondences. Upon this over 2000-year-old foundation is still being built one of the most relevant and fascinating scientific adventures of all time.     

The World under the Stars: Astrological Geography and the Bologna 1477 Edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmographia

ABSTRACT

This article is a re-examination of the first complete printed edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmographia (Bologna, de Lapis, 1477), hitherto considered flawed and defective. An investigation of the status and priorities of the team of court astrologers responsible for this edition, and an examination of the alterations they made to Ptolemy’s maps, suggests that their aim was a redaction intentionally different from existing versions of the Geography. It is suggested that the editors sought to adjust the arrangement of provinces from that recommended in Ptolemy’s Geography (book VIII) to the astrological arrangement detailed in his Tetrabiblos (book II) and that they modified the content of the key regional maps accordingly. In this light, the Bologna 1477 edition underlines the importance of assessing the reception of Ptolemy’s geographical work against a cultural background in which astrology prevailed as an integrated system of knowledge, practices and beliefs.     

Mapping Past and Present: Leonardo Bufalini's Plan of Rome (1551)

Leonardo Bufalini's plan of Rome (1551) was the first printed map of the Eternal City and a landmark in the history of city plans. This article fills several lacunae in the scholarship on the map by reconsidering its intended function and audience and by situating it at the intersection of technical and antiquarian endeavour in sixteenth‐century Rome. At issue are Bufalini's methods for making the map, along with the distinctive combination of practical and scholarly interests that motivated him. The anomalous status of Bufalini's plan in the realm of popular printed imagery of the city signals, moreover, that the Renaissance audience had a marked preference for pictorial city views over maps.     

Microscopy in Camillo Golgi's Times

The research performed by Camillo Golgi in histology and pathology dates from 1865, the year in which he obtained his MD degree, to 1923, when his last scientific article was published. Beginning in the mid-1855s, microscope manufacturers in Europe started producing objectives based on the principle of immersion introduced in 1847 by Giovan Battista Amici. The immersion objectives greatly improved the resolution of microscopic observations at high magnifications. From 1860 to 1872, technological improvements in microscope optics and the practicality of their use provided a larger community of investigators effective tools needed to study the structure of the nervous system. This progress in microscopy was associated with the application of new histological techniques, mastered by the chromoargentic reaction introduced by Golgi in 1873. In 1872, further progress in microscopy stemmed from the application of notions of applied physics to the production of microscope optics. These developments in microscopy will be briefly reviewed here.     

3. RADICALIZING TEMPORAL DIFFERENCE: ANTHROPOLOGY,POSTCOLONIAL THEORY,AND LITERARY TIME

This article is an attempt to address on a theoretical level an antinomy in postcolonial approaches to the question of temporal difference. Current scholarship tends both to denounce the way in which the others of the Western self are placed notionally in another time than the West and not only analytically affirm but indeed valorize multiple temporalities. I elaborate on the two problematic temporal frameworks—linear developmentalism and cultural relativism—that belong to a colonial legacy and generate the antinomy in question, and then proceed to discuss possible alternatives provided by a Koselleck‐inspired approach to historical time as inherently plural. I thereby make two central claims: (1) postcolonial conceptions of multiple temporalities typically, if tacitly, associate time with culture, and hence risk reproducing the aporias of cultural relativism; (2) postcolonial metahistorical critique is commonly premised on a simplified and even monolithic understanding of Western modernity as an ideology of “linear progress.” Ultimately, I suggest that the solution lies in radicalizing, not discarding, the notion of multiple temporalities. Drawing on the Brazilian classic Os sertões as my key example, I also maintain that literary writing exhibits a unique “heterochronic” (in analogy with “heteroglossic”) potential, enabling a more refined understanding of temporal difference.     

Sermons,Preaching, and Liturgy: Practices,Research Methods,and the Case of Giordano da Pisa

This article analyses the relationship between sermons, preaching, and liturgy within the Order of the Friars Preachers in late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Italy. It provides an account of a specific method for the study of the medieval ‘modern sermon’ by investigating the reportationes of the sermons given by Giordano da Pisa, a Dominican friar who preached in Florence and Pisa between 1302 and 1309. The investigation using this method shows that the sermons’ subjects and arguments, often considered by historians to be a direct consequence and reflection of Florence’s social and economic reality, had in fact also much to do with the evangelical story or epistolary passage assigned to the specific date of the liturgical calendar: there are thus two principal influences rather than just one. This approach to Giordano’s sermons provides a new perspective on his work as a preacher by being more attentive to the internal construction mechanisms of sermon discourse.     

A Portuguese East Indiaman from the 1502–1503 Fleet of Vasco da Gama off Al Hallaniyah Island,Oman: an interim report

Two Portuguese naus from Vasco da Gama's second voyage to India, left behind to disrupt maritime trade between India and the Red Sea, were wrecked in May 1503 off the north‐eastern coast of Al Hallaniyah Island, Oman. The ships, Esmeralda and São Pedro, had been commanded by da Gama's maternal uncles, Vicente and Brás Sodré, respectively. A detailed study and scientific analysis of an artefact assemblage recovered during archaeological excavations conducted in Al Hallaniyah in 2013 and 2014 confirms the location of an early 16th‐century Portuguese wreck‐site, initially discovered in 1998. Esmeralda is proposed as the probable source of the remaining, un‐salved wreckage.     

Evolving Ideas: J. B. d’Anville’s Maps of Southern Africa, 1725–1749

This article focuses on the changes made to the cartography of southern Africa between 1725 and 1749 by the French geographer Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville. The maps in question were produced in collaboration with the Portuguese ambassador Dom Luís da Cunha as part of d’Anville’s plan to demonstrate what lay between the Portuguese colonies of Angola in the west and Mozambique in the east and to establish a link across the continent. The maps he produced in the first two phases of his mapping of southern Africa (1725–1731) echoed the traditional horror vacui. The vast blank that appeared on his map of Afrique of 1749, however, has to be seen as d’Anville intended—the integration of empty space on a map with Enlightenment rationalization of geography.