Threatened Knowledge

Threatened Knowledge
Author: Renate Dürr
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2021-09-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000452042

Threatened Knowledge discusses the practices of knowing, not-knowing, and not wanting to know from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. In times of "fake news", processes of forgetting and practices of non-knowledge have sparked the interest of historical and sociological research. The common ground between all the contributions in this volume is the assumption that knowledge does not simply increase over time and thus supplant phases of not-knowing. Moreover, the contributions show that knowing and not-knowing function in very similar ways, which means they can be analysed along similar methodological lines. Given the implied juxtaposition between emotions and rational thinking, the role of emotions in the process of knowledge production has often been trivialized in more traditional approaches to the subject. Through a broad geographical and chronological approach, spanning from prognostic texts in the Carolingian period to stock market speculation in early-twentieth-century United States, this volume demonstrates the important role of emotions in the history of science. By bringing together cultural historians of knowledge, emotions, finance, and global intellectual history, Threatened Knowledge is a useful tool for all students and scholars of the history of knowledge and science on a global scale.

Nidrstigningar Saga

Nidrstigningar Saga
Author: Dario Bullitta
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2018-01-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1442698004

The Evangelium Nicodemi, or Gospel of Nicodemus, was the most widely circulated apocryphal writing in medieval Europe. It depicted the trial, Passion, and crucifixion of Christ as well as his Harrowing of Hell. During the twelfth-century renaissance, some exemplars of the Evangelium Nicodemi found their way to Iceland where its text was later translated into the vernacular and known as Niðrstigningar saga. Dario Bullitta has embarked on a highly fascinating voyage that traces the routes of transmission of the Latin text to Iceland and continental Scandinavia. He argues that the saga is derived from a less popular twelfth-century French redaction of the Evangelium Nicodemi, and that it bears the exegetical and scriptural influences of twelfth-century Parisian scholars active at Saint Victor, Peter Comestor and Peter Lombard in particular. By placing Niðrstigningar saga within the greater theological and homiletical context of early thirteenth-century Iceland, Bullitta successfully adds to our knowledge of the early reception of Latin biblical and apocryphal literature in medieval Iceland and provides a new critical edition and translation of the vernacular text.

The Southern Version of Cursor Mundi, Vol. IV

The Southern Version of Cursor Mundi, Vol. IV
Author: Peter H. J. Mous
Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
Total Pages: 191
Release: 1997-10-17
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 077661729X

The medieval poem Cursor Mundi is a biblical verse account of the history of the world, offering a chronological overview of salvation history from Creation to Doomsday. Originating in northern England around the year 1300, the poem was frequently copied in the north before appearing in a southern version in substantially altered form. Although it is a storehouse of popular medieval biblical lore and a fascinating study in the eclectic use of more than a dozen sources, the poem has until now attracted little scholarly attention. This five-part collaborative edition presents the Arundel version of the poem with variants from three others. In addition it provides a discussion of sources and analogues, detailed explanatory notes, and a bibliography.