Jennifer Van Horn
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469629568
- eISBN:
- 9781469629582
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469629568.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
Over the course of the eighteenth century, Anglo-Americans purchased an unprecedented number and array of goods. This book investigates these diverse artifacts—from portraits and city views to ...
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Over the course of the eighteenth century, Anglo-Americans purchased an unprecedented number and array of goods. This book investigates these diverse artifacts—from portraits and city views to gravestones, dressing furniture, and prosthetic devices—to explore how elite American consumers assembled objects to form a new civil society on the margins of the British Empire. In this interdisciplinary transatlantic study, artifacts emerge as key players in the formation of Anglo-American communities and, eventually, of American citizenship. Interweaving analysis of paintings and prints with furniture, architecture, textiles, and literary works, the book reconstructs the networks of goods that bound together consumers in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Charleston, S.C. Moving beyond emulation and the desire for social status as the primary motivators for consumption, this work illuminates that Anglo-Americans’ material choices were intimately bound up with their efforts to institute civility and to distance themselves from native Americans and African Americans. It also traces colonial women’s contested place in forging provincial culture in British America. As encountered through a woman’s application of makeup at her dressing table or an amputee’s donning of a wooden leg after the Revolutionary War, material artifacts were far from passive markers of rank or political identification. Instead, they actively participated in making Anglo-American society.Less
Over the course of the eighteenth century, Anglo-Americans purchased an unprecedented number and array of goods. This book investigates these diverse artifacts—from portraits and city views to gravestones, dressing furniture, and prosthetic devices—to explore how elite American consumers assembled objects to form a new civil society on the margins of the British Empire. In this interdisciplinary transatlantic study, artifacts emerge as key players in the formation of Anglo-American communities and, eventually, of American citizenship. Interweaving analysis of paintings and prints with furniture, architecture, textiles, and literary works, the book reconstructs the networks of goods that bound together consumers in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Charleston, S.C. Moving beyond emulation and the desire for social status as the primary motivators for consumption, this work illuminates that Anglo-Americans’ material choices were intimately bound up with their efforts to institute civility and to distance themselves from native Americans and African Americans. It also traces colonial women’s contested place in forging provincial culture in British America. As encountered through a woman’s application of makeup at her dressing table or an amputee’s donning of a wooden leg after the Revolutionary War, material artifacts were far from passive markers of rank or political identification. Instead, they actively participated in making Anglo-American society.
Barry Stroud
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195151886
- eISBN:
- 9780199867189
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195151887.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Examines psychological facts such as colour, focusing on thoughts, beliefs and perceptions, while analysing how they relate to physical facts. Perceptions of colour need to be acknowledged separately ...
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Examines psychological facts such as colour, focusing on thoughts, beliefs and perceptions, while analysing how they relate to physical facts. Perceptions of colour need to be acknowledged separately from objects before they can be philosophically unmasked, because the idea that humans experience sensations does not explain predicational seeing, which assigns certain properties to an object. Two strategies are identified to prove the unreality of colour, one stating that perceptions of colour are not true, the other arguing that, according to subjectivism, colours depend on perceived sensations.Less
Examines psychological facts such as colour, focusing on thoughts, beliefs and perceptions, while analysing how they relate to physical facts. Perceptions of colour need to be acknowledged separately from objects before they can be philosophically unmasked, because the idea that humans experience sensations does not explain predicational seeing, which assigns certain properties to an object. Two strategies are identified to prove the unreality of colour, one stating that perceptions of colour are not true, the other arguing that, according to subjectivism, colours depend on perceived sensations.
Howard Chiang (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719096006
- eISBN:
- 9781781708460
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719096006.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This collection expands the history of Chinese medicine by bridging the philosophical concerns of epistemology and the history and cultural politics of transregional medical formations. Topics range ...
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This collection expands the history of Chinese medicine by bridging the philosophical concerns of epistemology and the history and cultural politics of transregional medical formations. Topics range from the spread of gingko’s popularity from East Asia to the West to the appeal of acupuncture for complementing in-vitro fertilization regimens, from the modernization of Chinese anatomy and forensic science to the evolving perceptions of the clinical efficacy of Chinese medicine. The individual essays cohere around the powerful theoretical-methodological approach, “historical epistemology,” with which scholars in science studies have already challenged the seemingly constant and timeless status of such rudimentary but pivotal dimensions of scientific process as knowledge, reason, argument, objectivity, evidence, fact, and truth. Yet given that landmark studies in historical epistemology rarely navigate outside the intellectual landscape of Western science and medicine, this book broadens our understanding of its application and significance by drawing on and exploring the rich cultures of Chinese medicine. In studying the globalizing role of medical objects, the contested premise of medical authority and legitimacy, and the syncretic transformations of metaphysical and ontological knowledge, contributors illuminate how the breadth of the historical study of Chinese medicine and its practices of knowledge-making in the modern period must be at once philosophical and transnational in scope. This book will appeal to students and scholars working in science studies and medical humanities as well as readers who are interested in the broader problems of translation, material culture, and the global circulation of knowledge.Less
This collection expands the history of Chinese medicine by bridging the philosophical concerns of epistemology and the history and cultural politics of transregional medical formations. Topics range from the spread of gingko’s popularity from East Asia to the West to the appeal of acupuncture for complementing in-vitro fertilization regimens, from the modernization of Chinese anatomy and forensic science to the evolving perceptions of the clinical efficacy of Chinese medicine. The individual essays cohere around the powerful theoretical-methodological approach, “historical epistemology,” with which scholars in science studies have already challenged the seemingly constant and timeless status of such rudimentary but pivotal dimensions of scientific process as knowledge, reason, argument, objectivity, evidence, fact, and truth. Yet given that landmark studies in historical epistemology rarely navigate outside the intellectual landscape of Western science and medicine, this book broadens our understanding of its application and significance by drawing on and exploring the rich cultures of Chinese medicine. In studying the globalizing role of medical objects, the contested premise of medical authority and legitimacy, and the syncretic transformations of metaphysical and ontological knowledge, contributors illuminate how the breadth of the historical study of Chinese medicine and its practices of knowledge-making in the modern period must be at once philosophical and transnational in scope. This book will appeal to students and scholars working in science studies and medical humanities as well as readers who are interested in the broader problems of translation, material culture, and the global circulation of knowledge.
Matilda Mroz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780748643462
- eISBN:
- 9780748676514
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748643462.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Interpretations of the Decalogue series have largely focused upon symbolism and the relationship between the Ten Commandments and the individual films, seeking to attribute symbolic attachments to ...
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Interpretations of the Decalogue series have largely focused upon symbolism and the relationship between the Ten Commandments and the individual films, seeking to attribute symbolic attachments to particular images. This chapter, by contrast, attempts to bring out those moments in between those that seem to be significant or symbolically meaningful, using David Trotter's formulation of the ‘hermeneutic threshold’ to explore moments which do not seem particularly concerned with meaning at all, but are, instead, affective. The films continually suggest the presence of an ordered system of meaning, through omens, significant objects, and patterns, while ultimately deferring a full explication of significance. Disjunctive chronologies and the slow unfolding of the films continually resist attempts to fasten meaning onto their images, resonating instead with uncertainty and indeterminacy. The chapter also analyses the significance of music in the films (Zbigniew Preisner's score) and discusses the distinction between affect and emotion posited by Brian Massumi.Less
Interpretations of the Decalogue series have largely focused upon symbolism and the relationship between the Ten Commandments and the individual films, seeking to attribute symbolic attachments to particular images. This chapter, by contrast, attempts to bring out those moments in between those that seem to be significant or symbolically meaningful, using David Trotter's formulation of the ‘hermeneutic threshold’ to explore moments which do not seem particularly concerned with meaning at all, but are, instead, affective. The films continually suggest the presence of an ordered system of meaning, through omens, significant objects, and patterns, while ultimately deferring a full explication of significance. Disjunctive chronologies and the slow unfolding of the films continually resist attempts to fasten meaning onto their images, resonating instead with uncertainty and indeterminacy. The chapter also analyses the significance of music in the films (Zbigniew Preisner's score) and discusses the distinction between affect and emotion posited by Brian Massumi.
Kriti Sharma
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823265527
- eISBN:
- 9780823266913
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823265527.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
This chapter critically examines six crucial assumptions or intuitions involved in the familiar view that we live in a world of intrinsically existent objects: the assumption of the intrinsic ...
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This chapter critically examines six crucial assumptions or intuitions involved in the familiar view that we live in a world of intrinsically existent objects: the assumption of the intrinsic boundedness and continuity of objects; the assumption of the intrinsic boundedness and continuity of the fundamental parts of which objects are composed; the assumption of the intrinsic existence of (emergent) properties; the intuition of the intrinsic existence of something—causal power—that links one event to another; the intuitive appeal to the unity of sense perceptions; and, finally, the assumption that even if “what is” doesn’t exist intrinsically as things, there’s still something there—it’s just inexpressible. The chapter is summarized by asking “What do objects depend on?” and by answering as follows: Objects depend on observers both to bound them and to hold them as continuous over time; their effects depend on observers to distinguish objects from each other and to note regular interactions between objects that have thus been distinguished; their properties depend on what is sensed and measured, and on the relations observers make between measurement and theories; the vividness of objects and their place as bona-fide members of the real world depend on the coordination of various bodily movements and sense perceptions, as well as coordination between interacting members of social collectives.Less
This chapter critically examines six crucial assumptions or intuitions involved in the familiar view that we live in a world of intrinsically existent objects: the assumption of the intrinsic boundedness and continuity of objects; the assumption of the intrinsic boundedness and continuity of the fundamental parts of which objects are composed; the assumption of the intrinsic existence of (emergent) properties; the intuition of the intrinsic existence of something—causal power—that links one event to another; the intuitive appeal to the unity of sense perceptions; and, finally, the assumption that even if “what is” doesn’t exist intrinsically as things, there’s still something there—it’s just inexpressible. The chapter is summarized by asking “What do objects depend on?” and by answering as follows: Objects depend on observers both to bound them and to hold them as continuous over time; their effects depend on observers to distinguish objects from each other and to note regular interactions between objects that have thus been distinguished; their properties depend on what is sensed and measured, and on the relations observers make between measurement and theories; the vividness of objects and their place as bona-fide members of the real world depend on the coordination of various bodily movements and sense perceptions, as well as coordination between interacting members of social collectives.
Pablo F. Gómez
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469630878
- eISBN:
- 9781469630892
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469630878.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter traces the strategies that Caribbean ritual specialists used to create substances and objects with bodily effect. It shows how ritual practitioners modeled the power of medicinal ...
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This chapter traces the strategies that Caribbean ritual specialists used to create substances and objects with bodily effect. It shows how ritual practitioners modeled the power of medicinal substances and power objects on the basis of myriad encounters with cosmopolitan therapeutic communities in Caribbean lands. The power of healing substances resided in the tactics that practitioners used to claim privileged access to nature’s secrets, to its blessings and terrifying truths. The chapter shows how the tracing of the history of seventeenth-century Caribbean materials with bodily effects necessitates the plotting of maps of social realities and competition that go beyond a study of European appropriation and interpretation of “exotic” materials.These substances’ effectiveness was inextricably linked to the local realities within which practitioners deployed them. Caribbean substance specialists worked in communities that were unstable and continuously engaged in exchanges and appropriations. The specialized and complex powers of the substances and power objects they crafted for specific Caribbean rich and vibrant social spaces were, thus, not always geographically portable.Less
This chapter traces the strategies that Caribbean ritual specialists used to create substances and objects with bodily effect. It shows how ritual practitioners modeled the power of medicinal substances and power objects on the basis of myriad encounters with cosmopolitan therapeutic communities in Caribbean lands. The power of healing substances resided in the tactics that practitioners used to claim privileged access to nature’s secrets, to its blessings and terrifying truths. The chapter shows how the tracing of the history of seventeenth-century Caribbean materials with bodily effects necessitates the plotting of maps of social realities and competition that go beyond a study of European appropriation and interpretation of “exotic” materials.These substances’ effectiveness was inextricably linked to the local realities within which practitioners deployed them. Caribbean substance specialists worked in communities that were unstable and continuously engaged in exchanges and appropriations. The specialized and complex powers of the substances and power objects they crafted for specific Caribbean rich and vibrant social spaces were, thus, not always geographically portable.
Howard Chiang
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719096006
- eISBN:
- 9781781708460
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719096006.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter introduces the volume by situating historical epistemology in its proper intellectual and cultural genealogy (from the late nineteenth century to the present), by arguing for the ...
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This chapter introduces the volume by situating historical epistemology in its proper intellectual and cultural genealogy (from the late nineteenth century to the present), by arguing for the usefulness of historical epistemology to move beyond the limitation of the medicalization thesis, and by providing an overview of the book and delineating a history of the objects, authority, and existence of modern Chinese medicine that connects the broader social forces and challenges of globalization to the internal epistemic formations of East Asian medical knowledge.Less
This chapter introduces the volume by situating historical epistemology in its proper intellectual and cultural genealogy (from the late nineteenth century to the present), by arguing for the usefulness of historical epistemology to move beyond the limitation of the medicalization thesis, and by providing an overview of the book and delineating a history of the objects, authority, and existence of modern Chinese medicine that connects the broader social forces and challenges of globalization to the internal epistemic formations of East Asian medical knowledge.
