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A Book of Battle: Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo and La ciencia española

By Editor Spencer J. Weinreich Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo’s La ciencia española (first ed. 1876) is a battlefield long after the guns have fallen silent: the soldiers dead, the armies disbanded, even the names of the belligerent nations changed beyond… Continue Reading →

The challenge of contingency and Leibniz’s cybernetic thinking

By guest contributor Audrey Borowski According to the philosopher of science Alexandre Koyré, the early modern period marked the passage ‘from the world of more-or-less to the universe of precision’. Not all thinkers greeted the mathematization of epistemology with the… Continue Reading →

What We’re Reading: Week of 29th January

Here are some pieces from around the internet that have caught the eyes of our editorial team this week: Derek: “Garbage, Genius, or Both? Three Ways of Looking at Infinite Jest” (LitHub) Editors, “Debating the Uses and Abuses of ‘Neoliberalism’:… Continue Reading →

The Origins of Autonomy: Not as Lonesome as You Might Expect

By Contributing Writer Molly Wilder Autonomous man is–and should be–self-sufficient, independent, and self-reliant, a self-realizing individual who directs his efforts towards maximizing his personal gains. His independence is under constant threat from other (equally self-serving) individuals: hence he devises rules… Continue Reading →

What We’re Reading: Week of 22nd January.

Here are a few pieces that have caught the attention of our editorial team this week: Sarah: Andy Beckett, “Post-Work: The Radical Idea of a World Without Jobs,” (Guardian) Alison Croggan, “Now The Sky is Empty,” (overland) Richard Eldridge, “What… Continue Reading →

The Historical Origins of Human Rights: A Conversation with Samuel Moyn

By guest contributor Pranav Kumar Jain Since the publication of The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, Professor Samuel Moyn has emerged as one of the most prominent voices in the field of human rights studies and modern intellectual history…. Continue Reading →

Firebrand Infrastructures: Insights from the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry Postgraduate Workshop

by guest contributor Alison McManus  For less populated fields of history, a conference designed for intellectual exchange can occasionally double as an existence proof. The workshop for the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry must have appeared to… Continue Reading →

What We’re Reading: Week of 15th January.

Here are a few pieces that have caught the attention of our editorial team this week: Derek Brandon M. Terry, “MLK Now” (Boston Review) Teresa Kroeger et al., “The state of graduate student employee unions” (Economic Policy Institute) Lewis Lapham,… Continue Reading →

Life and Likeness at the Portland Museum of Art

By Editor Derek O’Leary, in conversation with curator Diana Greenwold It can be easy to imagine the early American republic as rushing headlong into the future during its first half-century—westward with the suppression of Indian society, seaborne to new markets… Continue Reading →

An “Extreme Turn”? Some Thoughts on Material Culture, Exploration, and Interdisciplinary Directions

By Contributing Writer Sarah Pickman In 1848 Peter Halkett, a lieutenant in the British Royal Navy, published his designs for a most curious invention. Halkett was interested in the numerous exploratory expeditions the Navy had sent to the Canadian Arctic… Continue Reading →

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