Cultures of Knowledge: An Intellectual Geography of the Seventeenth-Century Republic of Letters

Last Saturday’s edition of The Early Music Show on BBC Radio 3 showcased on a fascinating collection of instrumental music from seventeenth-century Germany (land of Comenius, and a comparative focus our 2011 conference), known as Das Partiturbuch Ludwig. The manuscript was put together by musician Jacob Ludwig as a birthday present in 1662 for his former employer in Wolfenbüttel, Duke August of Gotha. Now in the care of the Herzog August Bibliothek, it provides a rare insight into the musical cultures of the Holy Roman Empire in the middle decades of the seventeenth century. The programme is available for the next few days on the iPlayer.

We are currently seeking an Editorial Assistant (1.0FTE) to help us with the online publication of the Bodleian Library’s card catalogue of seventeenth-century manuscript correspondence. To be based in the History Faculty, the assistant, who will be employed for six months in the first instance, will be responsible for providing basic quality assurance on metadata from the cards which has been keyed and supplied by an outsourcing company. Working with online tools for the display and editing of data developed specifically for the Project, they will ensure that all records have been tagged in compliance with Project standards; that within each individual field dates, names, and places have been expressed correctly and without typographical errors; and implement necessary changes directly onto the records by means of a simple data entry interface. The closing date for applications is noon on Friday 5 February 2010; for full details and how to apply, please see here.

Dr Anna Marie Roos, our industrious Martin Lister Research Fellow, has contributed her expertise to Chemistry: A Volatile History, a three-part series of hour-long documentaries to be broadcast on BBC Four from the end of this week. As well as describing Lister’s various contributions to the discipline, Anna Marie provides insights into Boyle and The Skeptical Chymist, and Newton and alchemy, and assisted producers in their preparation for the programme (including confirming that Boyle did not in fact invent the phosphorous match). The first episode will be broadcast on Thursday 21 January at 9pm.