Never one to write up my lecture notes particularly far in advance, here (as long promised) is the first proper draft of the presentation I’ll be giving next Tuesday morning [3rd July 2012] for the second week of the 2012 London Rare Book School seminar series.
It’s a whacking great 12MB download, and is called Privacy, Secrecy, Brevity, Speed.
Just to give you an idea of what’s going on in my mind, I don’t actually know how the talk is going to go – given that I prepared 10x more material than was strictly necessary, I could probably talk for 20-30 minutes on each slide in turn. But given that I can’t predict sensibly what the people on the course will actually find useful and/or interesting, we’ll just have to see where it ends up on the day. 🙂
Of course, part of the reason anyone ever puts themselves through an ordeal like this as a lecturer is to find out what they actually think about things themselves. Speaking to (and indeed debating with) a live audience pushes you to move beyond the glibly overconfident text-y answers you can get away with when you’re at your PC late in the night with a cup of cocoa beside you. I’m sure you know the ones I mean. 🙁
So, here’s to finding out what I really think! Perhaps it’ll surprise me… it normally does! 😉
Dear Nick,
Ordinarily I’d byte. Twelve Mega’s! I’ll hold off until your return to these pages. Otherwise, curiousity just might kill the cat!
Yesterday, I visited your Compelling Press site, in the hope of being able to purchase an autographed copy of “Curse”. I took down the mailing address which I hope is still valid. Any hope?
Remember, you have a good-size audience right here on your forum pages —.
%^
Just in case any (or one) of the other speakers should approach the subject of botany/herbals:
I found a document in Phillip Neal’s Kircher Correspondence archive that may have been written by one of the doctors in Rudolph II’s court: Rembert Dodoens
I’ve done a rough translation of the prescription that uses silver in solution…..
No signature, but Dodoens produced a “Cruydt-Boeck” not long after he left Rudolph’s court and taught at Leyden.
If you were “on-stage” so to speak, I’d say “Break a leg”! Ennyway, enjoy the doings!
Any chance you might translate it to a pdf when you have time?
~ written late at night, cup-of- beside me ~ 😀
Diane, here’s a PDF version hosted on Google Docs:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bx2ZxPLdifaoYTlDY1RFbHZIS00
Click “File -> Download” if you want your own copy of the PDF.
One comment only – in slide 5 you write in a process involving ‘Historical imagination’ and ‘Speculation’. Depending on who the historians are (you did say the talk is for historians?) the idea that imagination and speculation are involved in the process of researching history might not go down all that well.
It’s an evidence-based (and limited) discipline in the minds of most, I think.
I have an historical problem related to the various forms of shorthand. Too much to post here – may I email?
Diane: of course you can! 🙂
Diane: all meaningful research necessarily involves hypotheses, and all hypotheses necessarily require imagination to conceive. One can be a tolerably OK historian without imagination, but (I would argue) not a very good one.
I don’t know that it’s true that all meaningful research involves hypotheses. I think you’re saying that new ideas require hypotheses, but then one has to question the value of a ‘new idea’ versus a different inference, or new conclusion drawn from existing, or more recent information. I see so many ‘new ideas’ – half-baked most of them, because they spring from the researcher’s fertile imagination, not from any solid body of information. e.g. an hyptothesis that the dissemination of weaving was instrumental in spreading knowledge of Indian (and Islamic) numerals because ‘to weave you have to count threads’. Wonderfully novel hypothesis – paper was even published – but total guff.
PS Thanks, I shall.
I viewed your slides. You’re going to give that presentation with a straight face? Great closing!
Diane: my epistemological viewpoint is that there is no such thing as a single kind of knowledge, but rather a whole joined-up network of knowledges – evidence and hypotheses are merely two such elements in that network. And yes, even though the necessity for imagination in hypothesis formation does indeed let all kinds of half-bakery into the party (and we know where that leads, *sigh*), you simply can’t do history or science without having competing hypotheses (plural).
Theses yes, hypotheses hmmm.
These days ‘hypothesis’ is too often used to mean a ‘fancy’ as in ‘I fancy the Vms was written by …x…’ and I shall first find something I can cite in support, and then you can prove me wrong.
An hypothesis really should extrapolate, not anticipate evidence, I think.
Anyway – I’ve come across a script which looks interesting. Date uncertain but this Russian (Georgian? Abkhaz?) site says it’s ‘ancient’ Abkhaz script.
Would anyone who knows a bit about languages on the eastern side of the Black Sea care to comment?
http://www.ethnic-cinema-country.ru/kalligrafia/
Nick –
Just so’s you know. That general remark about hypothesis springs from marking NON-Voynich related papers.
People can be imaginative about motifs painted on a pot, too.
David – thanks for that link.
Y’know…I think an even better closing to your presentation would be the nekkid ladies in their “barrels”, waving their banners and stars……rah, rah, sis, boomba….
Nick, please view this latest post from me with an eye to the “high spirits” I wished to convey!
Books. Old and new books; I wouldn’t have made it to my great age of 69 y.o. w/out ’em!
Nick,
I feel the previous comment on hypothesis reads pointedly, which I did not intend I recommend ‘Curse’ to everyone interested in the manuscript – it’s up there with d’Imperio, if for different reasons.
I do agree that we need all sorts of knowledge to advance any field of study. What I felt, though, was that historians tend to shy away at the word ‘speculation’ and mightn’t like to see it embedded in the flow-chart.
Hope the talk goes down well.
Happened to notice: its 10am Tuesday, London time.
Gambate!
Nick,
I’m sorry if I’ve offended you with my posts re ladies waving striped banners and stars on strings.
It seems that I’ve now been banished from the forum topic I initiated (round n’ round). Oh well, I shall sign off today with just one more reference (not in the form of a link) to Phillip Neal’s fabulous website/pages ‘n pages:
In addition to other references I’ve made to Mr. Neal’s site (alchimistae letter), if you do visit his site, you might like to see a section titled “Wydra Translation”.
It’s your website, feel free to erase my entire forum topic ‘Round n Around’. I’ll still be visiting, but as an observer/reader.
Good luck, if you are planning to publish a sequel to your first book. (If you’d like some proofreading help, I’m volunteering.)
oooh, just had a mild earthquake, gotta report to US Quake pages
G’bye!
And then there are small audiences …
Some forty years ago, while qualifying to be a member of Toastmasters USA (and NOT wanting to be a member of the “women’s auxiliary) I had to give a 15-minute lecture, using drawings or slides, as part of the exercise/talk. At that time Toastmaster’s was an all-male Executive’s organization.
My presentation included “life-size” drawings of feet. Specifically bare feet. The bare feet of an elderly Chinese woman who’d had her feet tightly bound when she was just four years old.
I qualified without having to donate a single penny to the er-um-ah penalty pot. A couple of the men. however, did seem to be a little “green around the gills”.
%^ Beady eyed wonder with a smirk! Heh!
I just read your opening remarks again for this page. I had the impression that there would be several speakers beside yourself. Not the case? Were you “all alone” at the podium? Are we eventually going to get some tidbits from the seminar? I may occasionally tease or make a pun or two, but I really do enjoy being a participant, here on your pages, and pages…..
Nick,
Have you re-filed the forum topics that developed while you were at your Rare Books seminar? “Round n’ Round, for instance?
I’m trying to find our exchange, yesterday, regarding my “vat-man” commentary. When I made that comment, I was only trying to divert some of the crazier “web-crawlers” from latching onto one more of your forum commentaries. My apologies if I seemed sarcastic or snide.
If you’d rather I “move on” to other topics or other forums, please indicate so. Thanx for your polite patience with me!