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

A major six-part BBC series on the history of science will start tomorrow (Tuesday 27 April 2010, 9pm, BBC2). The series, in which presenter Michael Mosley ‘takes an informative and ambitious journey exploring how the evolution of scientific understanding is intimately interwoven with society’s historical path’, was advised by Pietro Corsi, Professor of the History of Science and a member of the Project’s steering committee. For further information, see the the BBC website. The above clip and several others are available on the BBC’s YouTube channel.

Further to this post, Dr William Poole‘s correspondence-related lectures at the Museum of the History of Science and the Oxford Bibliographical Society last month have now been published online. ‘The Chinaman and the Librarian: The Meeting of Shen Fuzong and Thomas Hyde in 1687′ is available in full-text on ORA, while ‘Oxford and the Royal Society in the Seventeenth Century’ is available as a podcast on the MHS website.

Detail of a letter from van Gogh to his brother. Arles, on or about 20 May 1888. (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, b529 a-c V/1962).

A lecture on ‘The Letters of Vincent van Gogh: Book and Web Edition’ will take place at the Maison Française, Oxford on Wednesday 28 April at 4.30pm. Part of the Digital Humanities Seminar 2010, the event will showcase ‘Vincent van Gogh: The Letters’, which launched simultaneously as a six-volume book edition and scholarly web edition in October 2009 after fifteen years of research by the van Gogh Museum and the Huygens Institute. Two of the creators of the resource, Nienke Bakker (van Gogh Museum, Amserdam) and Peter Boot (Huygens Institute, The Hague), will discuss the genesis of the project, the depth and variety of the research, the importance of the letters both as an art historical source and as literature, and the rationale for publishing both a voluminous book edition and a free web edition. For further information, please see the lecture flyer. For the project website, please see www.vangoghletters.org.

A lecture by Susan E. Whyman entitled ‘Letter Writing, Reading, and the Rise of the Novel: Jane Johnson of Olney and Samuel Richardson’ will take place at Convocation House of Oxford’s Bodleian Library on Tuesday 4 May 2010 at 1pm. In the lecture, which is organised by the Friends of the Bodleian, Dr Whyman (author of The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers, 1660-1800 [Oxford, 2009]) will use the Bodleian’s manuscripts of Jane Johnson of Olney (1706-59) and the letters of Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) to explore the complex relationship between reading, letter writing, and the rise of the novel in the eighteenth century. Admission is free, and all are welcome. Wine and sandwiches will be available at Chancellor’s Court after the lecture at a cost of £7 per person, for which bookings should be made with the Administrator. If you would like to attend, please RSVP to fob@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Detail from 'Portrait of John Wallis', by Godfrey Kneller. 1701. Oil on canvas, overall dimensions 23.8 by 144.8cm. (The Examination Schools, University of Oxford)

A roundtable symposium on ‘John Wallis as Correspondent and Controversialist’ will take place at Jesus College of the University of Oxford on 12–14 April 2010. Several leading authorities on the seventeenth-century mathematician will explore his multiple roles as correspondent, editor, cryptographer, and controversialist, as well as his relationship with his contemporaries, and the programme will also feature a guided tour of the University Archives (of which Wallis was keeper). Auditors are welcome. The symposium is the concluding event of the AHRC-funded Wallis Project (from late 2010, the editing of Wallis’s correspondence will form a sub-project of Cultures of Knowledge). A programme can be downloaded here (pdf). For further information, please contact Dr David Cram at david.cram@jesus.ox.ac.uk.