Carnivalesque #24 at Serendipities

Kristine at Serendipities (now featured on our blogroll) has a terrific new group of Carnivalesque offerings here, centered around the topic of commonplace books.  Plenty of thoughtful connections here for those interested in the early modern end of the longish eighteenth. 

 From my point of view, some of the most interesting stuff here was the gathered material about the historical resemblances between blogs and early modern practices of interactive reading.  I was interested to see that our own Miriam Jones (Miriam, are you still there?) did her own NEASECS talk (subsequently posted to the Valve) about scholarly blogging and technology in 2005, and talked about the competing metaphors of blogs as commonplace books vs. blogs as coffeehouses.  I was also relieved to find that, although there was some overlap, that we didn’t simply replicate the discussion from 2005 (though it would be interesting to hear whether there has been much change in audience experience/interest/receptivity since 2005).

Since at least one part of the audience is still wondering whether to make the technological plunge, while the other part merrily joins in the conversation, I’m curious about how this kind of discussion could move forward.  Any ideas?

And it seems to me that these kinds of rolling scholarly conversations/compilations, particularly events like Carnivalesque or Teaching Carnival, make some of the best arguments we could find for the value of scholarly blogging.

Best,

DM

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Carnivalesque #24

Welcome to the 24th Carnivalesque! There are lots of great links here, so let’s get started.

Maps

Strange Maps discusses California’s history as an island, possibly home to the Garden of Eden.

George Goodall at Facetation writes on the influence of engineering on early modern maps. Why didn’t maps develop more quickly into the representational structures we recognize today? I’ve recently heard a number of interesting answers from the aesthetic angle to this question, but Goodall frames it as a question of technology and knowledge.

The Conventicle‘s H.C. Ross posts a series of links to maps of interest to students of Puritanism.

Early Modern America

Walking the Berkshires describes a fascinating episode of the American Revolution.

Mary Mark Ockerbloom at Merrigold discusses the life and poetry of Phillis Wheatley.

Language, Literature and Philosophy

Conrad H. Roth at Varieties of Unreligious Experience on the language of alchemy and the history of writing about the London Bridge.

Paul Robinson at Novice Philosopher wonders how Hume and Bayes never crossed paths.

Brad Pasanek at The Mind is a Metaphor explores the implications of mechanical imagery for the mind through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

John Holbo wants you to come talk about Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew at the Valve.

Simplicius at Blogging the Renaissance wonders how to avoid getting anti-Semitic responses to The Merchant of Venice.

Brett Hirsch at Sound and Fury explores the relationship of Jewishness to poison-making, and how poison makes a dog burst.

Loveliness

Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society posts this beautiful representation of Linnaeus’s “Flower Clock.”

Philobiblon visits the plague wall in Provence.

PK at Bibliodyssey gives us this extraordinary series of illustrations of a Tuileries Tournament.

Fun

Also at BtR, play along with this New-Yorker-style caption contest, from Truewit.

Mark A. Rayner at the Skwib brings us more of the The Lost PowerPoint Slides, Gutenberg Edition.

This Gaudy Gilded Stage offers the first two installments of Hottie of the Month, Sir Charles Sedley and William Congreve.

(And, of course, everything here and at the Eighteenth-Century Reading Room offers early modern content nearly as oft as you could wish it.)