Podcasts about seventeenth century

Hello Interactors,Cities are layered by past priorities. I was just in Overland Park, Kansas, where over the last 25 years I've seen malls rise, fall, and shift outward as stores leave older spaces behind.When urban systems shift — due to climate, capital, codes, or crisis — cities drift. These changes ripple across scales and resemble fractal patterns, repeating yet evolving uniquely.This essay traces these patterns: past regimes, present signals, and competing questions over what's next.URBAN SCRIPTS AND SHIFTING SCALESAs cities grow, they remember.Look at a city's form — the way its streets stretch, how its blocks bend, where its walls break. These are not neutral choices. They are residues of regimes. Spatial decisions shaped by power, fear, belief, or capital.In ancient Rome, cities were laid out in strict grids. Streets ran along two axes: the cardo and decumanus. It made the city legible to the empire — easy to control, supply, and expand. Urban form followed the logic of conquest.As cartography historian, O. A. W. Dilke writes,“One of the main advantages of a detailed map of Rome was to improve the efficiency of the city's administration. Augustus had divided Rome into fourteen districts, each subdivided into vici. These districts were administered by annually elected magistrates, with officials and public slaves under them.”In medieval Europe, cities got messy. Sovereignty was fragmented. Trade replaced tribute. Guilds ran markets as streets tangled around church and square. The result was organic — but not random. It reflected a new mode of life: small-scale, interdependent, locally governed.In 19th-century Paris, the streets changed again. Narrow alleys became wide boulevards. Not just for beauty — for visibility and force. Haussmann's renovations made room for troops, light, and clean air. It was urban form as counter-revolution.Then came modernism. Superblocks, towers, highways. A form that made sense for mass production, cheap land, and the car. Planning became machine logic — form as efficiency.Each of these shifts marked the arrival of a new spatial calculus — ways of organizing the built environment in response to systemic pressures. Over time, these approaches came to be described by urbanists as morphological regimes: durable patterns of urban form shaped not just by architecture, but by ideology, infrastructure, and power. The term “morphology” itself was borrowed from biology, where it described the structure of organisms. In urban studies, it originally referred to the physical anatomy of the city — blocks, plots, grids, and streets. But today the field has broadened. It's evolved into more of a conceptual lens: not just a way of classifying form, but of understanding how ideas sediment into space. Today, morphology tracks how cities are shaped — not only physically, but discursively and increasingly so, computationally. Urban planning scholar Geoff Boeing calls urban form a “spatial script.” It encodes decisions made long ago — about who belongs where, what gets prioritized, and what can be seen or accessed. Other scholars treated cities like palimpsests — a term borrowed from manuscript studies, where old texts were scraped away and overwritten, yet traces remained. In urban form, each layer carries the imprint of a former spatial logic, never fully erased. Michael Robert Günter (M. R. G.) Conzen, a British geographer, pioneered the idea of town plan analysis in the 1960s. He examined how street patterns, plot divisions, and building forms reveal historical shifts. Urban geographer and architect, Anne Vernez Moudon brought these methods into contemporary urbanism. She argued that morphological analysis could serve as a bridge between disciplines, from planning to architecture to geography. Archaeologist Michael E. Smith goes further. Specializing in ancient cities, Smith argues that urban form doesn't just reflect culture — it produces it. In early settlements, the spatial organization of plazas, roads, and monuments actively shaped how people understood power, social hierarchy, and civic identity. Ritual plazas weren't just for ceremony — they structured the cognitive and social experience of space. Urban form, in this sense, is conceptual. It's how a society makes its world visible. And when that society changes — politically, economically, technologically — so does its form. Not immediately. Not neatly. But eventually. Almost always in response to pressure from the outside.INTERVAL AND INFLECTIONUrban morphology used to evolve slowly. But today, it changes faster — and with increasing volatility. Physicist Geoffrey West, and other urban scientists, describes how complex systems like cities exhibit superlinear scaling: as they grow, they generate more innovation, infrastructure, and socio-economic activity at an accelerating pace. But this growth comes with a catch: the system becomes dependent on continuous bursts of innovation to avoid collapse. West compares it to jumping from one treadmill to another — each one running faster than the last. What once took centuries, like the rise of industrial manufacturing, is now compressed into decades or less. The intervals between revolutions — from steam power to electricity to the internet — keep shrinking, and cities must adapt at an ever-faster clip just to maintain stability. But this also breeds instability as the intervals between systemic transformations shrink. Cities that once evolved over centuries can now shift in decades.Consider Rome. Roman grid structure held for centuries. Medieval forms persisted well into the Renaissance. Even Haussmann's Paris boulevards endured through war and modernization. But in the 20th century, urban morphology entered a period of rapid churn. Western urban regions shifted from dense industrial cores to sprawling postwar suburbs to globalized financial districts in under a century — each a distinct regime, unfolding at unprecedented speed.Meanwhile, rural and exurban zones transformed too. Suburbs stretched outward. Logistics corridors carved through farmland. Industrial agriculture consolidated land and labor. The whole urban-rural spectrum was redrawn — not evenly, but thoroughly — over a few decades.Why the speed?It's not just technology. It's the stacking of exogenous shocks. Public health crises. Wars. Economic crashes. Climate shifts. New empires. New markets. New media. These don't just hit policy — they hit form.Despite urbanities adaptability, it resists change. But when enough pressure builds, it breaks and fragments — or bends fast.Quantitative historians like Peter Turchin describe these moments as episodes of structural-demographic pressure. His theory suggests that as societies grow, they cycle through phases of expansion and instability. When rising inequality, elite overproduction, and resource strain coincide, the system enters a period of fragility. The ruling class becomes bloated and competitive, public trust erodes, and the state's ability to mediate conflict weakens. At some point, the social contract fractures — not necessarily through revolution, but through cumulative dysfunction that demands structural transformation.Cities reflect that process spatially. The street doesn't revolt. But it reroutes. The built environment shows where power has snapped or shifted. Consider Industrial Modernity. Assuming we start in 1850, it took roughly 100 years before the next regime took shape — the Fordist-Suburban Expansion starting in roughly 1945. It took around 30-40 years for deregulation to hit in the 80s. By 1995 information, communication, and technology accelerated globalization, financialization, and the urban regime we're currently in — Neoliberal Polycentrism.Neoliberal Polycentricism may sound like a wonky and abstract term, but it reflects a familiar reality: a pattern of decentralized, uneven urban growth shaped by market-driven logics. While some scholars debate the continued utility of the overused term 'neoliberalism' itself, its effects on the built environment remain visible. Market priorities continue to dominate and reshape spatial development and planning norms. It is not a wholly new spatial condition. It's the latest articulation of a longer American tradition of decentralizing people and capital beyond the urban core. In the 19th century, this dynamic took shape through the rise of satellite towns, railroad suburbs, and peripheral manufacturing hubs. These developments were often driven by speculative land ventures, private infrastructure investments, and the desire to escape the regulatory and political constraints of city centers. The result was a form of urban dispersal that created new nodes of growth, frequently insulated from municipal oversight and rooted in socio-economic and racial segregation. This early polycentricism, like fireworks spawning in all directions from the first blast, set the stage for later waves of privatized suburbanization and regional fragmentation. Neoliberalism would come to accelerate and codify this expansion.It came in the form of edge cities, exurbs, and special economic zones that proliferated in the 80s and 90s. They grew not as organic responses to demographic needs, but as spatial products of deregulated markets and speculative capital. Governance fragmented. Infrastructure was often privatized or outsourced. As Joel Garreau's 1991 book Edge City demonstrates, a place like Tysons Corner, Virginia — a highway-bound, developer-led edge city — embodied this shift: planned by commerce, not civic vision. A decade later, planners tried to retrofit that vision — adding transit, density, and walkability — but progress has been uneven, with car infrastructure still shaping much of daily life.This regime aligned with the rise of financial abstraction and logistical optimization. As Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman argue in Underground Empire, digital finance extended global capitalism's reach by creating a networked infrastructure that allowed capital to move seamlessly across borders, largely outside the control of democratic institutions. Cities and regions increasingly contorted themselves to host these flows — rebranding, rezoning, and reconfiguring their form to attract global liquidity.At the same time, as historian Quinn Slobodian notes, globalism was not simply about market liberalization but about insulating capital from democratic constraint. This logic played out spatially through the proliferation of privatized enclaves, special jurisdictions, and free trade zones — spaces engineered to remain separate from public oversight while remaining plugged into global markets.In metro cores, this led to vertical Central Business Districts, securitized plazas, and speculative towers. In the suburbs and exurbs, it encouraged the low-density, car-dependent landscapes that still propagate. It's still packaged as freedom but built on exclusion. In rural zones, the same logic produces logistics hubs, monoculture farms, and fractured small towns caught precariously between extraction and abandonment.SEDIMENT AND SENTIMENTWhat has emerged in the U.S., and many other countries, is a fragmented patchwork: privatized downtowns, disconnected suburbs, branded exurbs, and digitally tethered hinterlands…often with tax advantages. All governed by the same regime, but expressed through vastly different forms.We're in a regime that promised flexibility, innovation, and shared global prosperity — a future shaped by open markets, technological dynamism, and spatial freedom. But that promise is fraying. Ecological and meteorological breakdown, housing instability, and institutional exhaustion are revealing the deep limits of this model.The cracks are widening. The pandemic scrambled commuting rhythms and retail flows that reverberate to this day. Climate stress reshapes assumptions about where and how to build. Platforms restructure access to space as AI wiggles its way into every corner. Through it all, the legitimacy of traditional planning models, even established forms of governing, weakens.Some historians may call this an interregnum — a space between dominant systems, where the old still governs in form, but its power to convince has faded. The term comes from political theory, describing those in-between moments when no single order fully holds. It's a fitting word for times like these, when spatial logic lingers physically but loses meaning conceptually. The dominant spatial logic remains etched in roads, zoning codes, and skylines — but its conceptual scaffolding is weakening. Whether seen as structural-demographic strain or spatial realignment, this is a moment of uncertainty. The systems that once structured urban life — zoning codes, master plans, market forecasts — may no longer provide a stable map. And that's okay. Interregnums, as political theorist Christopher Hobson reminds us, aren't just voids between orders — they are revealing. Moments when the cracks in dominant systems allow us to see what had been taken for granted. They offer space to reflect, to experiment, and to reimagine.Maybe what comes next is less of a plan and more of a posture — an attitude of attentiveness, humility, and care. As they advise when getting sucked out to sea by a rip tide: best remain calm and let it spit you out where it may than try to fight it. Especially given natural laws of scale theory suggests these urban rhythms are accelerating and their transitions are harder to anticipate. Change may not unfold through neat stages, but arrive suddenly, triggered by thresholds and tipping points. Like unsuspectingly floating in the warm waters of a calm slack tide, nothing appears that different until rip tide just below the surface reveals everything is.In that sense, this drifting moment is not just prelude — it is transformation in motion. Cities have always adapted under pressure — sometimes slowly, sometimes suddenly. But they rarely begin anew. Roman grids still anchor cities from London to Barcelona. Medieval networks persist beneath tourist maps and tangled streets. Haussmann's boulevards remain etched across Paris, shaping flows of traffic and capital. These aren't ghosts — they're framing. Living sediment.Today's uncertainty is no different. It may feel like a void, but it's not empty. It's layered. Transitions build on remnants, repurposing forms even as their meanings shift. Parcel lines, zoning overlays, server farms, and setback requirements — these are tomorrow's layered manuscripts — palimpsests.But it's not just physical traces we inherit. Cities also carry conceptual ones — ideas like growth, public good, infrastructure, or progress that were forged under earlier regimes. As historian Elias Palti reminds us, concepts are not fixed. They are contingent, born in conflict, and reshaped in uncertainty. In moments like this, even the categories we use to interpret urban life begin to shift. The city, then, is not just a built form — it's a field of meaning. And in the cracks of the old, new frameworks begin to take shape. The work now is not only to build differently, but to think differently too.REFERENCESDilke, O. A. W. (1985). Greek and Roman Maps. Cornell University Press.Boeing, Geoff. (2019). “Spatial Information and the Legibility of Urban Form.” Journal of Planning Education and Research, 39(2), 208–220.Conzen, M. R. G. (1960). “Alnwick, Northumberland: A Study in Town Plan Analysis.” Institute of British Geographers Publication.Moudon, Anne Vernez. (1997). “Urban Morphology as an Emerging Interdisciplinary Field.” Urban Morphology, 1(1), 3–10.Smith, Michael E. (2007). “Form and Meaning in the Earliest Cities: A New Approach to Ancient Urban Planning.” Journal of Planning History, 6(1), 3–47.West, Geoffrey. (2017). Scale: The Universal Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities, and Companies. Penguin Press.Turchin, Peter. (2016). Ages of Discord: A Structural-Demographic Analysis of American History. Beresta Books.Garreau, Joel. (1991). Edge City: Life on the New Frontier. Doubleday.Farrell, Henry, & Newman, Abraham. (2023). Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy. Henry Holt.Slobodian, Quinn. (2023). Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy. Metropolitan Books.Hobson, Christopher. (2015). The Rise of Democracy: Revolution, War and Transformations in International Politics since 1776. Edinburgh University Press.Palti, Elias José. (2020). An Archaeology of the Political: Regimes of Power from the Seventeenth Century to the Present. Columbia University Press. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

The Bible is not the only source of knowledge about God. Christians believe that God has revealed himself through creation (Ps 19:1, Rom 1:19-20), which means we should be able to find evidence for God in nature. This approach, referred to as natural theology, develops a philosophy of God based on observations about our world. Today's show will attempt to "provide reasons for thinking that classical theism is more reasonable because it has a greater explanatory power than naturalism." We will be taking your pressing questions and strongest objections! This is part 1 of our apologetics study as we work through "The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology." Dr. Charles Taliaferro (professor emeritus of philosophy at St. Olaf College). He also contributed to "Natural Theology: Five Views" from Baker Academic and authored "Evidence and Faith: Philosophy and Religion since the Seventeenth Century" from Cambridge University Press.

Using a wide range of archival material and a microhistorical approach, Plagues of the Heart: Crisis and Covenanting in a Seventeenth-Century Scottish Town (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Michelle Brock explores the formation, practice and performance of protestant identity amid the interlocking crises of the seventeenth century. Taking the southwestern port city of Ayr as a remarkable but revealing case study, this book argues that under the stewardship of a generation of radical clergy, Scotland developed a distinct and durable 'culture of covenanting'. This culture was created not simply by swearing the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, but through reimagining the post-Reformation program of discipline and worship around hard-line interpretations of those covenants. This compelling story of one Scottish town and its long-serving minister offers a fresh understanding of how protestant communities across the early modern world grappled with religion and identity during a remarkably tumultuous age. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Using a wide range of archival material and a microhistorical approach, Plagues of the Heart: Crisis and Covenanting in a Seventeenth-Century Scottish Town (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Michelle Brock explores the formation, practice and performance of protestant identity amid the interlocking crises of the seventeenth century. Taking the southwestern port city of Ayr as a remarkable but revealing case study, this book argues that under the stewardship of a generation of radical clergy, Scotland developed a distinct and durable 'culture of covenanting'. This culture was created not simply by swearing the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, but through reimagining the post-Reformation program of discipline and worship around hard-line interpretations of those covenants. This compelling story of one Scottish town and its long-serving minister offers a fresh understanding of how protestant communities across the early modern world grappled with religion and identity during a remarkably tumultuous age. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Using a wide range of archival material and a microhistorical approach, Plagues of the Heart: Crisis and Covenanting in a Seventeenth-Century Scottish Town (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Michelle Brock explores the formation, practice and performance of protestant identity amid the interlocking crises of the seventeenth century. Taking the southwestern port city of Ayr as a remarkable but revealing case study, this book argues that under the stewardship of a generation of radical clergy, Scotland developed a distinct and durable 'culture of covenanting'. This culture was created not simply by swearing the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, but through reimagining the post-Reformation program of discipline and worship around hard-line interpretations of those covenants. This compelling story of one Scottish town and its long-serving minister offers a fresh understanding of how protestant communities across the early modern world grappled with religion and identity during a remarkably tumultuous age. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Using a wide range of archival material and a microhistorical approach, Plagues of the Heart: Crisis and Covenanting in a Seventeenth-Century Scottish Town (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Michelle Brock explores the formation, practice and performance of protestant identity amid the interlocking crises of the seventeenth century. Taking the southwestern port city of Ayr as a remarkable but revealing case study, this book argues that under the stewardship of a generation of radical clergy, Scotland developed a distinct and durable 'culture of covenanting'. This culture was created not simply by swearing the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, but through reimagining the post-Reformation program of discipline and worship around hard-line interpretations of those covenants. This compelling story of one Scottish town and its long-serving minister offers a fresh understanding of how protestant communities across the early modern world grappled with religion and identity during a remarkably tumultuous age. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

Using a wide range of archival material and a microhistorical approach, Plagues of the Heart: Crisis and Covenanting in a Seventeenth-Century Scottish Town (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Michelle Brock explores the formation, practice and performance of protestant identity amid the interlocking crises of the seventeenth century. Taking the southwestern port city of Ayr as a remarkable but revealing case study, this book argues that under the stewardship of a generation of radical clergy, Scotland developed a distinct and durable 'culture of covenanting'. This culture was created not simply by swearing the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, but through reimagining the post-Reformation program of discipline and worship around hard-line interpretations of those covenants. This compelling story of one Scottish town and its long-serving minister offers a fresh understanding of how protestant communities across the early modern world grappled with religion and identity during a remarkably tumultuous age. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Using a wide range of archival material and a microhistorical approach, Plagues of the Heart: Crisis and Covenanting in a Seventeenth-Century Scottish Town (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Michelle Brock explores the formation, practice and performance of protestant identity amid the interlocking crises of the seventeenth century. Taking the southwestern port city of Ayr as a remarkable but revealing case study, this book argues that under the stewardship of a generation of radical clergy, Scotland developed a distinct and durable 'culture of covenanting'. This culture was created not simply by swearing the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, but through reimagining the post-Reformation program of discipline and worship around hard-line interpretations of those covenants. This compelling story of one Scottish town and its long-serving minister offers a fresh understanding of how protestant communities across the early modern world grappled with religion and identity during a remarkably tumultuous age. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Using a wide range of archival material and a microhistorical approach, Plagues of the Heart: Crisis and Covenanting in a Seventeenth-Century Scottish Town (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Michelle Brock explores the formation, practice and performance of protestant identity amid the interlocking crises of the seventeenth century. Taking the southwestern port city of Ayr as a remarkable but revealing case study, this book argues that under the stewardship of a generation of radical clergy, Scotland developed a distinct and durable 'culture of covenanting'. This culture was created not simply by swearing the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, but through reimagining the post-Reformation program of discipline and worship around hard-line interpretations of those covenants. This compelling story of one Scottish town and its long-serving minister offers a fresh understanding of how protestant communities across the early modern world grappled with religion and identity during a remarkably tumultuous age. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Today on Jewish Studies Unscrolled, we explore Nathan Hanover's 17th-century work, The Abyss of Despair, or, in the original Hebrew, Yeven Metsulah. The text documents the Chmelnitski Revolt of 1648, a catastrophic uprising that devastated Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. We're joined by Adam Teller, historian and author of Rescue the Surviving Souls: The Jewish Refugee Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, to examine how Jews across Europe and the Middle East organized a remarkable rescue network to ransom hostages, despite the era's limited communication tools. Drawing parallels to modern events, Adam Teller sheds new light on this often-overlooked chapter of history, showing how The Abyss of Despair holds untapped insights into Jewish resilience and global solidarity.

Dr. Ben Mayes of Concordia Theological Seminary-Fort Wayne The post Seventeenth Century Lutheran Theologian Johann Gerhard on the End of the World – Dr. Ben Mayes, 12/10/24 (3452) first appeared on Issues, Etc..

In 1632, the University Library at Cambridge was transformed by the arrival of an extraordinary collection of manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, and Malay. They were collected by an early Dutch orientalist, Thomas Van Erpe, better known by his Latinized name Erpinius. To mark the four hundredth anniversary of his death in 1624, Cambridge University Library has mounted a major exhibition of Erpinius's manuscript.  For a brief tour of the exhibition, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kCe865F7Ek Even today, the collection continues to teach researchers important new insights into not only the Islamic past, but also into the origins of European orientalism. In this episode, we trace the background of Erpinius's interest in Islam, before following his career as a linguist and manuscript collector that took him from his native Holland to the university cities of Europe, then Venice, before being appointed Professor of Arabic at Leiden University in 1613. Together with his writings and manuscript collection, this made him a key—but altogether complex—founder of orientalism.  Nile Green talks to Majid Daneshgar, the curator of the exhibition at Cambridge and the author of Studying the Quran in the Muslim Academy (Oxford, 2020).

The Enthusiast: Anatomy of the Fanatic in Seventeenth-Century British Culture (Cornell UP, 2023) tells the story of a character type that was developed in early modern Britain to discredit radical prophets during an era that witnessed the dismantling of the Church of England's traditional means for punishing heresy. As William Cook Miller shows, the caricature of fanaticism, here called the Enthusiast began as propaganda against religious dissenters, especially working-class upstarts, but was adopted by a range of writers as a literary vehicle for exploring profound problems of spirit, soul, and body and as a persona for the ironic expression of their own prophetic illuminations. Taking shape through the public and private writings of some of the most insightful authors of seventeenth-century Britain-Henry More, John Locke, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Mary Astell, and Jonathan Swift, among others-the Enthusiast appeared in various guises and literary modes. By attending to this literary being and its animators, The Enthusiast establishes the figure of the fanatic as a bridge between the Reformation and the Enlightenment, showing how an incipient secular modernity was informed by not the rejection of religion but the transformation of the prophet into something sparkling, witty, ironic, and new. William Cook Miller is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Rochester. His work has appeared in the journals New Literary History and Studies in Philology. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The Enthusiast: Anatomy of the Fanatic in Seventeenth-Century British Culture (Cornell UP, 2023) tells the story of a character type that was developed in early modern Britain to discredit radical prophets during an era that witnessed the dismantling of the Church of England's traditional means for punishing heresy. As William Cook Miller shows, the caricature of fanaticism, here called the Enthusiast began as propaganda against religious dissenters, especially working-class upstarts, but was adopted by a range of writers as a literary vehicle for exploring profound problems of spirit, soul, and body and as a persona for the ironic expression of their own prophetic illuminations. Taking shape through the public and private writings of some of the most insightful authors of seventeenth-century Britain-Henry More, John Locke, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Mary Astell, and Jonathan Swift, among others-the Enthusiast appeared in various guises and literary modes. By attending to this literary being and its animators, The Enthusiast establishes the figure of the fanatic as a bridge between the Reformation and the Enlightenment, showing how an incipient secular modernity was informed by not the rejection of religion but the transformation of the prophet into something sparkling, witty, ironic, and new. William Cook Miller is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Rochester. His work has appeared in the journals New Literary History and Studies in Philology. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

The Enthusiast: Anatomy of the Fanatic in Seventeenth-Century British Culture (Cornell UP, 2023) tells the story of a character type that was developed in early modern Britain to discredit radical prophets during an era that witnessed the dismantling of the Church of England's traditional means for punishing heresy. As William Cook Miller shows, the caricature of fanaticism, here called the Enthusiast began as propaganda against religious dissenters, especially working-class upstarts, but was adopted by a range of writers as a literary vehicle for exploring profound problems of spirit, soul, and body and as a persona for the ironic expression of their own prophetic illuminations. Taking shape through the public and private writings of some of the most insightful authors of seventeenth-century Britain-Henry More, John Locke, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Mary Astell, and Jonathan Swift, among others-the Enthusiast appeared in various guises and literary modes. By attending to this literary being and its animators, The Enthusiast establishes the figure of the fanatic as a bridge between the Reformation and the Enlightenment, showing how an incipient secular modernity was informed by not the rejection of religion but the transformation of the prophet into something sparkling, witty, ironic, and new. William Cook Miller is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Rochester. His work has appeared in the journals New Literary History and Studies in Philology. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

The Enthusiast: Anatomy of the Fanatic in Seventeenth-Century British Culture (Cornell UP, 2023) tells the story of a character type that was developed in early modern Britain to discredit radical prophets during an era that witnessed the dismantling of the Church of England's traditional means for punishing heresy. As William Cook Miller shows, the caricature of fanaticism, here called the Enthusiast began as propaganda against religious dissenters, especially working-class upstarts, but was adopted by a range of writers as a literary vehicle for exploring profound problems of spirit, soul, and body and as a persona for the ironic expression of their own prophetic illuminations. Taking shape through the public and private writings of some of the most insightful authors of seventeenth-century Britain-Henry More, John Locke, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Mary Astell, and Jonathan Swift, among others-the Enthusiast appeared in various guises and literary modes. By attending to this literary being and its animators, The Enthusiast establishes the figure of the fanatic as a bridge between the Reformation and the Enlightenment, showing how an incipient secular modernity was informed by not the rejection of religion but the transformation of the prophet into something sparkling, witty, ironic, and new. William Cook Miller is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Rochester. His work has appeared in the journals New Literary History and Studies in Philology. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

The Enthusiast: Anatomy of the Fanatic in Seventeenth-Century British Culture (Cornell UP, 2023) tells the story of a character type that was developed in early modern Britain to discredit radical prophets during an era that witnessed the dismantling of the Church of England's traditional means for punishing heresy. As William Cook Miller shows, the caricature of fanaticism, here called the Enthusiast began as propaganda against religious dissenters, especially working-class upstarts, but was adopted by a range of writers as a literary vehicle for exploring profound problems of spirit, soul, and body and as a persona for the ironic expression of their own prophetic illuminations. Taking shape through the public and private writings of some of the most insightful authors of seventeenth-century Britain-Henry More, John Locke, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Mary Astell, and Jonathan Swift, among others-the Enthusiast appeared in various guises and literary modes. By attending to this literary being and its animators, The Enthusiast establishes the figure of the fanatic as a bridge between the Reformation and the Enlightenment, showing how an incipient secular modernity was informed by not the rejection of religion but the transformation of the prophet into something sparkling, witty, ironic, and new. William Cook Miller is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Rochester. His work has appeared in the journals New Literary History and Studies in Philology. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Enthusiast: Anatomy of the Fanatic in Seventeenth-Century British Culture (Cornell UP, 2023) tells the story of a character type that was developed in early modern Britain to discredit radical prophets during an era that witnessed the dismantling of the Church of England's traditional means for punishing heresy. As William Cook Miller shows, the caricature of fanaticism, here called the Enthusiast began as propaganda against religious dissenters, especially working-class upstarts, but was adopted by a range of writers as a literary vehicle for exploring profound problems of spirit, soul, and body and as a persona for the ironic expression of their own prophetic illuminations. Taking shape through the public and private writings of some of the most insightful authors of seventeenth-century Britain-Henry More, John Locke, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Mary Astell, and Jonathan Swift, among others-the Enthusiast appeared in various guises and literary modes. By attending to this literary being and its animators, The Enthusiast establishes the figure of the fanatic as a bridge between the Reformation and the Enlightenment, showing how an incipient secular modernity was informed by not the rejection of religion but the transformation of the prophet into something sparkling, witty, ironic, and new. William Cook Miller is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Rochester. His work has appeared in the journals New Literary History and Studies in Philology. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

The Enthusiast: Anatomy of the Fanatic in Seventeenth-Century British Culture (Cornell UP, 2023) tells the story of a character type that was developed in early modern Britain to discredit radical prophets during an era that witnessed the dismantling of the Church of England's traditional means for punishing heresy. As William Cook Miller shows, the caricature of fanaticism, here called the Enthusiast began as propaganda against religious dissenters, especially working-class upstarts, but was adopted by a range of writers as a literary vehicle for exploring profound problems of spirit, soul, and body and as a persona for the ironic expression of their own prophetic illuminations. Taking shape through the public and private writings of some of the most insightful authors of seventeenth-century Britain-Henry More, John Locke, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Mary Astell, and Jonathan Swift, among others-the Enthusiast appeared in various guises and literary modes. By attending to this literary being and its animators, The Enthusiast establishes the figure of the fanatic as a bridge between the Reformation and the Enlightenment, showing how an incipient secular modernity was informed by not the rejection of religion but the transformation of the prophet into something sparkling, witty, ironic, and new. William Cook Miller is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Rochester. His work has appeared in the journals New Literary History and Studies in Philology. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

The Enthusiast: Anatomy of the Fanatic in Seventeenth-Century British Culture (Cornell UP, 2023) tells the story of a character type that was developed in early modern Britain to discredit radical prophets during an era that witnessed the dismantling of the Church of England's traditional means for punishing heresy. As William Cook Miller shows, the caricature of fanaticism, here called the Enthusiast began as propaganda against religious dissenters, especially working-class upstarts, but was adopted by a range of writers as a literary vehicle for exploring profound problems of spirit, soul, and body and as a persona for the ironic expression of their own prophetic illuminations. Taking shape through the public and private writings of some of the most insightful authors of seventeenth-century Britain-Henry More, John Locke, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Mary Astell, and Jonathan Swift, among others-the Enthusiast appeared in various guises and literary modes. By attending to this literary being and its animators, The Enthusiast establishes the figure of the fanatic as a bridge between the Reformation and the Enlightenment, showing how an incipient secular modernity was informed by not the rejection of religion but the transformation of the prophet into something sparkling, witty, ironic, and new. William Cook Miller is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Rochester. His work has appeared in the journals New Literary History and Studies in Philology. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Grounded in new archival research documenting a significant presence of foreign and racially-marked individuals in Medici Florence, Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Emily Wilbourne argues for the relevance of such individuals to the history of Western music and for the importance of sound-particularly musical and vocal sounds-to systems of racial and ethnic difference. Many of the individuals discussed in these pages were subject to enslavement or conditions of unfree labour; some laboured at tasks that were explicitly musical or theatrical, while all intersected with sound and with practices of listening that afforded full personhood only to particular categories of people. Integrating historical detail alongside contemporary performances and musical conventions, this book makes the forceful claim that operatic musical techniques were-from their very inception-imbricated with racialized differences. Dr. Wilbourne offers both a macro and micro approach to the content of this book. The first half of the volume draws upon a wide range of archival, theatrical and historical sources to articulate the theoretical interdependence of razza (lit. "race"), voice, and music in early modern Italy; the second half focuses on the life and work of a specific, racially-marked individual: the enslaved, Black, male soprano singer, Giovannino Buonaccorsi (fl.1651-1674). Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence reframes the place of racial difference in Western art music and provides a compelling pre-history to later racial formulations of the sonic. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Grounded in new archival research documenting a significant presence of foreign and racially-marked individuals in Medici Florence, Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Emily Wilbourne argues for the relevance of such individuals to the history of Western music and for the importance of sound-particularly musical and vocal sounds-to systems of racial and ethnic difference. Many of the individuals discussed in these pages were subject to enslavement or conditions of unfree labour; some laboured at tasks that were explicitly musical or theatrical, while all intersected with sound and with practices of listening that afforded full personhood only to particular categories of people. Integrating historical detail alongside contemporary performances and musical conventions, this book makes the forceful claim that operatic musical techniques were-from their very inception-imbricated with racialized differences. Dr. Wilbourne offers both a macro and micro approach to the content of this book. The first half of the volume draws upon a wide range of archival, theatrical and historical sources to articulate the theoretical interdependence of razza (lit. "race"), voice, and music in early modern Italy; the second half focuses on the life and work of a specific, racially-marked individual: the enslaved, Black, male soprano singer, Giovannino Buonaccorsi (fl.1651-1674). Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence reframes the place of racial difference in Western art music and provides a compelling pre-history to later racial formulations of the sonic. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

Grounded in new archival research documenting a significant presence of foreign and racially-marked individuals in Medici Florence, Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Emily Wilbourne argues for the relevance of such individuals to the history of Western music and for the importance of sound-particularly musical and vocal sounds-to systems of racial and ethnic difference. Many of the individuals discussed in these pages were subject to enslavement or conditions of unfree labour; some laboured at tasks that were explicitly musical or theatrical, while all intersected with sound and with practices of listening that afforded full personhood only to particular categories of people. Integrating historical detail alongside contemporary performances and musical conventions, this book makes the forceful claim that operatic musical techniques were-from their very inception-imbricated with racialized differences. Dr. Wilbourne offers both a macro and micro approach to the content of this book. The first half of the volume draws upon a wide range of archival, theatrical and historical sources to articulate the theoretical interdependence of razza (lit. "race"), voice, and music in early modern Italy; the second half focuses on the life and work of a specific, racially-marked individual: the enslaved, Black, male soprano singer, Giovannino Buonaccorsi (fl.1651-1674). Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence reframes the place of racial difference in Western art music and provides a compelling pre-history to later racial formulations of the sonic. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Grounded in new archival research documenting a significant presence of foreign and racially-marked individuals in Medici Florence, Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Emily Wilbourne argues for the relevance of such individuals to the history of Western music and for the importance of sound-particularly musical and vocal sounds-to systems of racial and ethnic difference. Many of the individuals discussed in these pages were subject to enslavement or conditions of unfree labour; some laboured at tasks that were explicitly musical or theatrical, while all intersected with sound and with practices of listening that afforded full personhood only to particular categories of people. Integrating historical detail alongside contemporary performances and musical conventions, this book makes the forceful claim that operatic musical techniques were-from their very inception-imbricated with racialized differences. Dr. Wilbourne offers both a macro and micro approach to the content of this book. The first half of the volume draws upon a wide range of archival, theatrical and historical sources to articulate the theoretical interdependence of razza (lit. "race"), voice, and music in early modern Italy; the second half focuses on the life and work of a specific, racially-marked individual: the enslaved, Black, male soprano singer, Giovannino Buonaccorsi (fl.1651-1674). Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence reframes the place of racial difference in Western art music and provides a compelling pre-history to later racial formulations of the sonic. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Grounded in new archival research documenting a significant presence of foreign and racially-marked individuals in Medici Florence, Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Emily Wilbourne argues for the relevance of such individuals to the history of Western music and for the importance of sound-particularly musical and vocal sounds-to systems of racial and ethnic difference. Many of the individuals discussed in these pages were subject to enslavement or conditions of unfree labour; some laboured at tasks that were explicitly musical or theatrical, while all intersected with sound and with practices of listening that afforded full personhood only to particular categories of people. Integrating historical detail alongside contemporary performances and musical conventions, this book makes the forceful claim that operatic musical techniques were-from their very inception-imbricated with racialized differences. Dr. Wilbourne offers both a macro and micro approach to the content of this book. The first half of the volume draws upon a wide range of archival, theatrical and historical sources to articulate the theoretical interdependence of razza (lit. "race"), voice, and music in early modern Italy; the second half focuses on the life and work of a specific, racially-marked individual: the enslaved, Black, male soprano singer, Giovannino Buonaccorsi (fl.1651-1674). Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence reframes the place of racial difference in Western art music and provides a compelling pre-history to later racial formulations of the sonic. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

Grounded in new archival research documenting a significant presence of foreign and racially-marked individuals in Medici Florence, Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Emily Wilbourne argues for the relevance of such individuals to the history of Western music and for the importance of sound-particularly musical and vocal sounds-to systems of racial and ethnic difference. Many of the individuals discussed in these pages were subject to enslavement or conditions of unfree labour; some laboured at tasks that were explicitly musical or theatrical, while all intersected with sound and with practices of listening that afforded full personhood only to particular categories of people. Integrating historical detail alongside contemporary performances and musical conventions, this book makes the forceful claim that operatic musical techniques were-from their very inception-imbricated with racialized differences. Dr. Wilbourne offers both a macro and micro approach to the content of this book. The first half of the volume draws upon a wide range of archival, theatrical and historical sources to articulate the theoretical interdependence of razza (lit. "race"), voice, and music in early modern Italy; the second half focuses on the life and work of a specific, racially-marked individual: the enslaved, Black, male soprano singer, Giovannino Buonaccorsi (fl.1651-1674). Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence reframes the place of racial difference in Western art music and provides a compelling pre-history to later racial formulations of the sonic. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

Grounded in new archival research documenting a significant presence of foreign and racially-marked individuals in Medici Florence, Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Emily Wilbourne argues for the relevance of such individuals to the history of Western music and for the importance of sound-particularly musical and vocal sounds-to systems of racial and ethnic difference. Many of the individuals discussed in these pages were subject to enslavement or conditions of unfree labour; some laboured at tasks that were explicitly musical or theatrical, while all intersected with sound and with practices of listening that afforded full personhood only to particular categories of people. Integrating historical detail alongside contemporary performances and musical conventions, this book makes the forceful claim that operatic musical techniques were-from their very inception-imbricated with racialized differences. Dr. Wilbourne offers both a macro and micro approach to the content of this book. The first half of the volume draws upon a wide range of archival, theatrical and historical sources to articulate the theoretical interdependence of razza (lit. "race"), voice, and music in early modern Italy; the second half focuses on the life and work of a specific, racially-marked individual: the enslaved, Black, male soprano singer, Giovannino Buonaccorsi (fl.1651-1674). Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence reframes the place of racial difference in Western art music and provides a compelling pre-history to later racial formulations of the sonic. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/italian-studies

Grounded in new archival research documenting a significant presence of foreign and racially-marked individuals in Medici Florence, Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Emily Wilbourne argues for the relevance of such individuals to the history of Western music and for the importance of sound-particularly musical and vocal sounds-to systems of racial and ethnic difference. Many of the individuals discussed in these pages were subject to enslavement or conditions of unfree labour; some laboured at tasks that were explicitly musical or theatrical, while all intersected with sound and with practices of listening that afforded full personhood only to particular categories of people. Integrating historical detail alongside contemporary performances and musical conventions, this book makes the forceful claim that operatic musical techniques were-from their very inception-imbricated with racialized differences. Dr. Wilbourne offers both a macro and micro approach to the content of this book. The first half of the volume draws upon a wide range of archival, theatrical and historical sources to articulate the theoretical interdependence of razza (lit. "race"), voice, and music in early modern Italy; the second half focuses on the life and work of a specific, racially-marked individual: the enslaved, Black, male soprano singer, Giovannino Buonaccorsi (fl.1651-1674). Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence reframes the place of racial difference in Western art music and provides a compelling pre-history to later racial formulations of the sonic. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sound-studies

A Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity St. Luke 15:1-10 by William Klock The Pharisees and the scribes were angry with Jesus.  Our Gospel, taken from Luke 15 if you're following along, begins as Luke tells us: All the tax collectors and sinners were drawing new to listen to Jesus.  The Pharisees and the scribes [they were the legal experts] were grumbling.  “This fellow welcomes sinners!” they said.  “He even eats with them!”   But why would they be angry about that?  You might remember the story I read with the kids a few weeks ago, the one about the “Super-Extra-Holy People”.  Those were the Pharisees.  And you'd think that seeing sinners repent, seeing sinners change their ways, seeing sinners welcomed back into the covenant community, you would think that the Extra-Super-Holy People would be thrilled to see that happening.  But they weren't. To understand why, we need to understand a bit about these Super-Extra-Holy Pharisees.  They were an interest group.  They were mostly rich people.  Some of them were part of the Sanhedrin, which was the governing council of the Jews.  But they weren't really the gatekeepers of Judaism.  They had their own ideas of what it meant to be a proper Jew.  But they didn't have the authority to say who was in or who was out.  The priests in the temple, they were the gatekeepers—literally.  It was up to them who could come into the temple and who could not.  They were the ones who offered sacrifices for the people.  They had the control, not the Pharisees.  But the Pharisees could still make their views known.  They could be spiritually ostentatious in public.  They could talk—even if the priests didn't care and even if they annoyed the common, ordinary, every-day people who went about their faith and their law-keeping in the usual way.  They could look down their noses at Jesus and they could argue with him, but they couldn't do anything to him.  That's why, as we saw last week, they lurked around, watching him in the hopes he'd do something or say something that they could report to the authorities—something arrestable and punishable—because they didn't have that kind of authority themselves. But what were the Pharisees actually about?  Well, they longed for the Lord's return.  The people had returned from their exile in Babylon, they'd rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple, but the Lord's presence—his shekinah—had never come back to rest in the holy of holies.  And God's people were still living under the boot of foreign pagans.  First it was the Persians, then the Greeks, and now the Romans.  It wasn't supposed to be that way.  And so they decided to be Super-Extra-Holy.  Pretty literally.  They did this by taking the torah's laws for the priests and the temple and they applied it to themselves.  To enter the temple, the Lord required ritual purity.  It reinforced the idea of the holiness of God and of his presence to the people, because in ordinary life you dealt pretty regularly with impurity.  Impurity wasn't a bad thing in itself.  There were some sins that would leave you unclean, but mostly impurity came from ordinary things like menstruation or sex or contact with a death, whether human or animal.  In most cases, you waited for a day, then bathed, and you were ritually clean again.  But unless you were a priest, it wasn't a big deal, because you only really had to be ritually pure if you wanted to go to the temple and most people only did that on the great feast days. But the Pharisees, they saw that the world is not as it should.  They knew that earth and heaven were created to be one, overlapping unity.  They knew that human beings were created to enjoy God's presence, but that human sin had created a rift between earth and heaven and human beings and God.  They longed to see things on earth as they are in heaven.  They knew, the one place in the whole world where earth and heaven, where our realm and God's realm overlapped was the temple.  So they resolved to live their lives as if they were perpetually, every day, living in the temple.  Like the priests, they kept themselves ritually pure all the time.  Maybe if everyone did that—or at least tried—the Lord would finally return to his people and his presence would again fill the temple and he would defeat Israel's enemies.  But, of course, only rich people could afford to live that way, so not very many people did. So the Pharisees were well-meaning.  They understood God's grace.  Contrary to popular opinion, they weren't trying to earn their way into God's favour.  But there's something that seems to happen whenever people start looking for ways to be holy above and beyond the ordinary or when we start making rules for ourselves that God didn't give us in the first place.  It happened with monastics in the Middle Ages, when celibacy became a sign of being Super-Extra-Holy and ordinary Christian—who were faithfully fruitful and multiplying as God commanded in the beginning—were made to feel unholy and second-class.  It happened with the Methodist Holiness Movement in the Seventeenth Century, with what started out as Wesley's desire to simply see Christians being more faithfully holy turning into a movement where Christian brothers and sisters were frowned on for putting sugar in their tea rather than drinking it black and giving the money to the poor.  It eventually led to people thinking that the gift of God's Spirit was a separate event in the life of the Christian that you had to earn by reaching a certain level of holiness—turning the Christian life completely upside-down. So wanting to be more holy is a good thing, but certain ways of doing it seem to have a powerful tendency to make us self-righteous.  Even when we know that being God's people is all about grace, we can still act very self-righteously.  It happened to the Pharisees and it can happen to us.  And so they rightly saw that the world is not what it should be.  It's full of sin and pain and tears and that's all because of unholiness and sin.  They knew that only God can ultimately set it to rights, but they also knew that God's people—whether Israel in the Old Testament or the Church in the New—we're called to live God's law—the torah in the Old Testament and the law of the Spirit in the New—we're called to live God's law and through that to became pockets of God's new creation, his future world set to rights, we're called to be pockets of that here in the present.  But some people out there are obstinate in their sin.  Some people are really awful sinners and we can literally watch as they make a mess of the world around them.  They do things that drag others into sin.  For the Pharisees that was the tax collectors, who collaborated with the Romans and who stole from their own people.  It was prostitutes, who not only sinned themselves, but who enticed others into sin.  Pharisees could see the fallout as men destroyed their lives and families because of prostitution.  These things were grievously wrong and sinful.  They were choices people made and they were conscious rejections of God's covenant.  They weren't just sinners, they were traitors, and they were very tangibly making the world a worse place.  And so the Pharisees—and I'm sure even ordinary people in Israel—they longed for the Lord to deal with these sinners.  And that's good.  And I expect they prayed: Lord, bring Matthew the tax collector, bring Mary the prostitute, to repentance—or judge them.  Either way, put an end to the sin.  And, again, that's what God does with sinners.  They were right to pray that way. But, again, something happens when we start making rules for ourselves that mark us out as super-extra-holy.  First, we forget that even if our sins aren't as heinous, none of us is ever perfect or sinless.  We all contribute in some way to the mess this world is in and the pain and the tears of the people around us.  But, maybe worse, we can start to resent when those really bad sinners don't get their just comeuppance.  Self-righteousness creeps in and grace and mercy get pushed out even though we know better, and we start longing to see God's judgement fall on sinners and we become resentful when they do repent—like the men in Jesus' parable who were angry when they, who had worked through the heat of the day, received the same wage as the men who had only worked an hour.  The Pharisees expected the Messiah to come in judgement on the unfaithful in Israel, to smite the tax collectors and the prostitutes and all the other sinners, but instead Jesus was eating with them.  The Pharisees knew that if Jesus was the Messiah, sharing a meal with him was like a promise of the great banquet that the Lord had promised the prophets, the great banquet that would take place when Israel was restored, when the world was set to rights, and when sinners were wiped from the earth for ever.  That banquet was for people like the Pharisees.  The tax collectors and sinners were supposed to be outside in the dark, weeping and gnashing their teeth—suffering the Lord's wrath because they'd missed their chance for repentance.  Even though they knew that being the people of God was about grace, the Pharisees had managed to become self-righteous. But there was a second thing about the Pharisees.  Remember that they were all about the temple.  They weren't priests.  They couldn't live in and around the temple the way the priests did, so they had their way of bringing the temple to them by following the purity codes for the priests in their everyday lives.  They wanted to see things on earth as they are in heaven.  But as they followed Jesus around and watched him, one thing that we might miss, but that stood out like a sore thumb to them, was that he bypassed the temple.  According to the law, for a sinner to be right again with the Lord, he had to repent of his sins, he had to make restitution for his sins, and he had to offer a sacrifice at the temple.  But time after time, they watched as Jesus simply forgave sinners and sent them on their way.  There's only one time recorded in the Gospels when Jesus sent someone to see a priest, and that wasn't a sin issue.  That was the leper he healed.  He sent them man to the priest—maybe to the temple or maybe just to a local priest—so that his healing could be verified and he could be readmitted to society.  But when it came to sinners, Jesus bypassed the temple, the priests, and the sacrificial system entirely.  That absolutely infuriated the Pharisees.  The Messiah—so they thought—should have been reinforcing the importance of the temple, but instead Jesus was bypassing it.  In fact, when he did go to the temple, he upset everything and brought the sacrifices to a halt while people ran around to collect all the animals he'd scattered.  And then he was announcing that he would destroy and rebuild it in three days.  This, I think more than anything else, made the Pharisees angry.  In Jesus, the God of Israel was doing something new.  In Jesus, the God of Israel had begun the process of uniting earth and heaven, when he took on human flesh.  In Jesus, the God of Israel had begun the work of creating a new people for himself, a people who instead of having a temple, would themselves be the temple as he poured his own Spirit into them.  That's why Jesus was bypassing the temple and offering people forgiveness apart from the priests and sacrificial system.  This is why Jesus was announcing and acting out prophecies of the temple's destruction.  But the Pharisees just couldn't let go of the temple.  They'd more or less made an idol of it—one that would become symbolic of unbelieving Israel's continuing rejection of the Jesus as Messiah.  The rabbis were the spiritual descendants of the Pharisees and to this day, rabbinic Judaism is still fixated on the temple.  When the Lord sent the Romans in judgement to destroy Jerusalem and the temple and to expel the people from the land, it was not only an act of judgement for their rejection of Jesus, but a not-so-subtle way of announcing that the days of the old covenant were through.  The temple had served its purpose.  Its role is now fill by Jesus and his people.  And yet unbelieving Israel continues to gather at the Western Wall, the last remnant of the temple's foundation, to pray—continuing to obstinately reject the Messiah.  The Pharisees, with their fixation on the temple and its holiness codes, were the embodiment of what it meant and what it looked like to refuse what God was doing in Jesus. So Jesus responded with three parables.  We read the first two in our Gospel today.  The third is the parable of the prodigal son.  Here's how Jesus responded to their obstinate rejection.  Again, Luke 15. Jesus told them this parable.  “Supposing one of you has a hundred sheep,” he said, “and you lose one of them.  What will you do?  Why, you'll leave the ninety-nine out in the countryside, and you'll go off looking for the lost one until you find it!  And when you find it, you'll be so happy—you'll put it on your shoulders and go home, and you'll call your friends and neighbours in.  ‘Come and have a party!' you'll say.  ‘Celebrate with me!  I've found my lost sheep!'”   Shepherds weren't really the Pharisees kind of people, but they might have owned flocks that other people took care of.  They knew the value of livestock and, being rich men, they counted their beans and knew the value of every one of them.  They could understand the fear the shepherd felt for his lost sheep.  Could he find it?  Would he find it?  And if he did, would it be too late?  Would he find the corpse eaten by wolves?  I don't know a thing about shepherding, but I get it.  And I can identify with the joy of the shepherd when he got home, carrying that lost sheep, and called his friends to rejoice with him.  We all sympathise with the shepherd and so did the Pharisees.  And notice that the parable is actually one long question that Jesus puts to them.  “If this happened to you, wouldn't you rejoice?”  Of course they would. And then skipping now to verses 8 and 9 Jesus tells them a second parable.  This time it's not one of ninety-nine that's lost; it's one of ten.  (In the third parable it's one of two.) “Or supposing a woman has ten drachmas [those were little silver coins] and loses one of them.  What will she do?  Why, she'll light a lamp, and sweep the house, and hunt carefully until she finds it!  And when she finds it she'll call her friends and neighbours in.  ‘Come and have a party!' she'll say.  ‘Celebrate with me!  I've found my lost coin!”   I get this.  A couple of weeks ago I was restoring an old lantern and when I went to put it back together I was missing a small part.  They haven't made that part since the 1950s.  I couldn't find it.  I looked online at the place that sells that sort of thing and they didn't have any.  I went to the collector groups online to ask if anyone had a spare.  No one did.  So I swept the whole garage and then I went through the dustpan with a magnet.  Nothing.  So I moved everything away from the walls and swept again.  Again with the magnet.  Nothing.  This time I took everything out of the garage and swept everywhere.  Finally the magnet found that little part.  I went back to the Facebook group.  “I found it!”  And everyone rejoiced with me. But notably we've gone from a shepherd well enough off to have ninety-nine sheep to a woman with only ten drachmas.  They were probably her bridal headdress, but that there were only ten coins says that she was poor.  Headdresses with hundreds of coins were common.  We can imagine this woman—an elderly widow—taking out her precious bridal headdress and putting it on to remember that day so long ago.  And when she goes to put it away she notices one of the ten coins is missing.  She doesn't see it anywhere and panics.  The sort of house a woman like that lived in was small and dark—hard to see anything small—so she sweeps the whole house.  And finally she finds it and she's so excited she runs to tell her friends so that they can share her joy.  And, again, there's that question.  “If this happened to you, wouldn't you rejoice?”  Of course they would. Two-thousand years distant we understand the stories, we sympathise with the shepherd and with the woman.  I bet that everyone who reads these stories immediately thinks of some time when something like this happened to them and the Pharisees were no different.  Jesus really drives the point home: If we can rejoice over a lost sheep or a lost coin that we've found, how much more ought we to rejoice over a lost sinner who repents.  Jesus strikes at their self-righteousness and lack of mercy.  God had once rescued them when they were lost in Egypt and slaves to Pharaoh.  He'd delivered Israel and claimed them as his own.  He even named Israel his son.  He naturally grieves over those who reject his gracious covenant and he just as naturally rejoices when they receive his grace and return.  I fully expect the Pharisees understood this was what Jesus was getting at, but just to make sure he says it out loud at the end of each story: “Let me tell you: that's how glad they will be in heaven over one sinner who repents—more than over ninety-nine righteous people who don't need repentance…[and]…that's how glad God's angels feel when a single sinner repents.”   Their idea of “on earth as it is in heaven” had gradually come to mean condemning sinners and consigning them to God's judgement.  But Jesus is saying, if you want to see what's going on in heaven stop looking to the temple.  That worked in the past, but in me God is doing something new.  Again, this is part of the reason why Jesus was forgiving sins and declaring people clean.  He was acting out and showing people how he is the new temple.  In him heaven and earth have come together.  In Jesus we have the firstfruits and a foretaste of God's redemption and his new creation.  So in these parables Jesus is telling the Pharisees, if you want to manifest on earth what is happening in heaven, look at what I am doing, not at the old temple.  And in Jesus and in his banquets with tax collectors and sinners we see that God truly loves sinners and that he's sent Jesus not to condemn us in our sin, but to rescue us and to lead us back to him in repentance and faith.  We're reminded here of Jesus' words in John 3:16-17: “This is how much God loved the world: enough to give his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him should not be lost, but should share in the life of God's new age.  After all, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world could be saved by him.”   The restoration of sinners was so important to God, that he was doing something dramatically new—and instead of rejoicing over what Jesus was doing, the Pharisees were rejecting him.  The Pharisees were partly right.  They were right to look forward to a day of coming judgement when God's Son would come to condemn sinners and to vindicate the righteous.  What they got wrong was that it never occurred to them that God would send his Son, not just at the end of history, but would first send him into the middle of history, to call sinners to repentance and to offer himself as a sacrifice for their sins.  To step into the middle of history to set a group of people to rights so that they would be his means of proclaiming his kingdom and his gracious forgiveness of sins—his gospel—to the world, so that when he does return at the end of history we won't be condemned.  In this we see the love of God.  He didn't cast humanity from his presence with a “Good riddance!”  We sundered heaven and earth and when we did, God set in motion a gracious plan to bring us back together. Brothers and Sisters, Jesus has sought us out in our lostness, he's forgiven us, and now invites us to his Table.  He's given himself as a sacrifice for our sins and this morning he invites us to his heavenly banquet.  But how do we come?  Again, this is the meal Jesus gave us to make sense of the cross.  He is the Passover lamb sacrificed for our sins.  By his death he frees us from our bondage to sin and death and leads us into new life and new creation.  In Jesus we see grace.  We don't deserve any of this.  We're the rebels; we're the sinners; we're the God-haters.  One day he will wipe such people from creation so that it can be finally, once and for all set to rights.  We deserve nothing but death, but in his grace Jesus offers us forgiveness and restoration and life.  And when we take hold of his grace in faith he tells us that the whole heavenly court rejoices.  What was lost has been found.  What ran away has been restored.  Someone who had been an enemy of God, is now a friend—even a son or a daughter. But we're always at risk of forgetting that we come to the banquet only by grace.  It's interesting that in the gnostic pseudo-gospel of Thomas, the parable was changed.  In that telling of the story, the shepherd explains to the lost sheep that he sought it out because he loved it and he valued it more than the others.[1]  We're prone to twisting the story the same way in our own minds—thinking that we've been invited here to the Table because we deserved to be here.  But that's not the story Jesus tells.  The one sheep that was lost was no more valuable than the other ninety-nine.  The one coin lost was no different than all the others.  In fact, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, which follows them, the son who was lost was an utter twit and many people justly wonder why his father didn't simply disown him.  The only difference between the one and the ninety-nine and the one and the ten is that the one was lost.  Brothers and sisters, we are not here because we've earned God's love.  We're here by his grace.  We are here because he rejoices in redeeming sinners.  We're here because it pleases him to forgive his enemies and restore them to his fellowship.  In this we see his glory. Jesus upset the Pharisees because he made manifest on earth the reality of heaven that they had forgotten.  He revealed that the Lord is a God who loves his enemies and desires to save them.  We pray the words from Jesus' prayer: “on earth as in heaven”.  But do we live out the reality of heaven in our lives by reaching out to sinners with the love and grace and joy of heaven?  It's easy to fall into self-righteousness and it's easy to live with an attitude of condemnation.  Brothers and Sisters, remember this morning that we come to the Lord's Table because of his love and grace.  We come as sinners forgiven.  When you go, don't leave all of this at the door of the church, but take it with you so that you can encounter the world with grace and with the same love that God has shown you in Jesus. Let us pray: Loving and gracious Father, help us to grasp your deep, deep love for sinners and the profound graciousness of grace.  Remind us of the joy in your courts over sinners who were lost and now found.  And, Father, help us to love our fellow sinners as you have loved us and show us ways in which we can make the reality of heaven known here on earth.  We ask this through Jesus the Messiah our Lord.  Amen. [1] Gospel of Thomas 107.

High fashion meets highway robbery with the seventeenth century's most lusted-after gentleman thief, Claude Duval.It's a flamboyantly dressed tale of rampant flirting, lewd piccolo playing and an appalling French accent. Why was France full of posh Englishmen in the 1650s?How many masked women can visit one man's prison cell?Can you dance provocatively in stiff leather boots?What was the content of the condemned man's secret final speech?All these questions and more will be answered in episode  41 of Rogues Gallery Uncovered - The podcast of Bad Behaviour in period costume.Send me a roguish messageThanks for listening. Stay Roguish!Email: simon@roguesgalleryonline.com Sign up & become a 'Rogue With Benefits' : HERE Find me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

"When the Spanish colonization of the Philippines began in 1565, early reports boasted of mass conversions to Christianity and ever-increasing numbers of people paying tribute to the Spanish crown. This suggests an uncomplicated story of an easy imposition of Spanish sovereignty.  But as Stephanie Mawson shows in her book, Incomplete Conquests: The Limits of Spanish Empire in the Seventeenth-Century Philippines (Cornell UP, 2023), the Spanish colonization of the Philippines was contested at every step, went on for centuries, and in many respects remained incomplete. Mawson tells the story of the diverse peoples who resisted Spanish colonization, in some cases for over 300 years. These included the “fugitives, apostates, and rebels, Chinese laborers, Moro slave raiders, native priestesses, Aeta headhunters, Pampangan woodcutters, and many others... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

"When the Spanish colonization of the Philippines began in 1565, early reports boasted of mass conversions to Christianity and ever-increasing numbers of people paying tribute to the Spanish crown. This suggests an uncomplicated story of an easy imposition of Spanish sovereignty.  But as Stephanie Mawson shows in her book, Incomplete Conquests: The Limits of Spanish Empire in the Seventeenth-Century Philippines (Cornell UP, 2023), the Spanish colonization of the Philippines was contested at every step, went on for centuries, and in many respects remained incomplete. Mawson tells the story of the diverse peoples who resisted Spanish colonization, in some cases for over 300 years. These included the “fugitives, apostates, and rebels, Chinese laborers, Moro slave raiders, native priestesses, Aeta headhunters, Pampangan woodcutters, and many others... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

"When the Spanish colonization of the Philippines began in 1565, early reports boasted of mass conversions to Christianity and ever-increasing numbers of people paying tribute to the Spanish crown. This suggests an uncomplicated story of an easy imposition of Spanish sovereignty.  But as Stephanie Mawson shows in her book, Incomplete Conquests: The Limits of Spanish Empire in the Seventeenth-Century Philippines (Cornell UP, 2023), the Spanish colonization of the Philippines was contested at every step, went on for centuries, and in many respects remained incomplete. Mawson tells the story of the diverse peoples who resisted Spanish colonization, in some cases for over 300 years. These included the “fugitives, apostates, and rebels, Chinese laborers, Moro slave raiders, native priestesses, Aeta headhunters, Pampangan woodcutters, and many others... Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

"When the Spanish colonization of the Philippines began in 1565, early reports boasted of mass conversions to Christianity and ever-increasing numbers of people paying tribute to the Spanish crown. This suggests an uncomplicated story of an easy imposition of Spanish sovereignty.  But as Stephanie Mawson shows in her book, Incomplete Conquests: The Limits of Spanish Empire in the Seventeenth-Century Philippines (Cornell UP, 2023), the Spanish colonization of the Philippines was contested at every step, went on for centuries, and in many respects remained incomplete. Mawson tells the story of the diverse peoples who resisted Spanish colonization, in some cases for over 300 years. These included the “fugitives, apostates, and rebels, Chinese laborers, Moro slave raiders, native priestesses, Aeta headhunters, Pampangan woodcutters, and many others... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"When the Spanish colonization of the Philippines began in 1565, early reports boasted of mass conversions to Christianity and ever-increasing numbers of people paying tribute to the Spanish crown. This suggests an uncomplicated story of an easy imposition of Spanish sovereignty.  But as Stephanie Mawson shows in her book, Incomplete Conquests: The Limits of Spanish Empire in the Seventeenth-Century Philippines (Cornell UP, 2023), the Spanish colonization of the Philippines was contested at every step, went on for centuries, and in many respects remained incomplete. Mawson tells the story of the diverse peoples who resisted Spanish colonization, in some cases for over 300 years. These included the “fugitives, apostates, and rebels, Chinese laborers, Moro slave raiders, native priestesses, Aeta headhunters, Pampangan woodcutters, and many others... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"When the Spanish colonization of the Philippines began in 1565, early reports boasted of mass conversions to Christianity and ever-increasing numbers of people paying tribute to the Spanish crown. This suggests an uncomplicated story of an easy imposition of Spanish sovereignty.  But as Stephanie Mawson shows in her book, Incomplete Conquests: The Limits of Spanish Empire in the Seventeenth-Century Philippines (Cornell UP, 2023), the Spanish colonization of the Philippines was contested at every step, went on for centuries, and in many respects remained incomplete. Mawson tells the story of the diverse peoples who resisted Spanish colonization, in some cases for over 300 years. These included the “fugitives, apostates, and rebels, Chinese laborers, Moro slave raiders, native priestesses, Aeta headhunters, Pampangan woodcutters, and many others... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Poetry about Love between Women from the 19th Century The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 285 with Heather Rose Jones In this episode we talk about: 19th century poetry Connections and cross-references between women poets Sources mentionedIn addition to being found in the following sources, the text of many of these poems have been taken from various online sources not mentioned. Castle, Terry (ed). 2003. The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall. Columbia University Press, New York. ISBN 0-231-12510-0 Domna C. Stanton. 1986. The Defiant Muse: French Feminist Poems from the Middle Ages to the Present. The Feminist Press, New York. ISBN 0-935312-52-8 Donoghue, Emma. 1997. Poems Between Women: Four centuries of love, romantic friendship, and desire. Columbia University Press, New York. ISBN 978-0-231-10925-3 Faderman, Lillian (ed). 1994. Chloe Plus Olivia: An Anthology of Lesbian Literature from the Seventeenth Century to the Present. New York: VIking. ISBN 0-670-84368-4 Faderman, Lillian. 1999.To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done for America – A History. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. ISBN 0-395-85010-X Greene, Ellen (ed). 1996. Re-Reading Sappho: Recepton and Transmission. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 0-520-20602-9 Griffin, Farah Jasmine. 1999. Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends: Letters from Rebecca Primus of Royal Oak, Maryland, and Addie Brown of Hartford, Connecticut, 1854-1868. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. ISBN 0-679-45128-5 Johnson, Thomas R. (ed). 1961. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Little, Brown, and Company, Boston. ISBN 0-316-18413-6 Vicinus, Martha. 2004. Intimate Friends: Women Who Loved Women, 1778-1928. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 0-226-85564-3 A transcript of this podcast is available here. Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/ Twitter: @LesbianMotif Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon Links to Heather Online Website: http://alpennia.com Email: Heather Rose Jones Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop Bluesky: @heatherrosejones Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

New Release - A History of Switzerland CountyIn this episode I describe the third book on my Indiana Short County History, Switzerland County. The Swiss settlers that migrated here near the end of the Seventeenth Century initiated the commercial wine making industry in the United States.A History of Switzerland CountyThe Author's WebsiteThe Author on LocalsThe Author on FacebookThe Author on TwitterThe Author on RumbleThe Author on YouTubeThe Author's Amazon Page

Image: Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Younger"Wittenberg Uses of Law and Gospel"Our guest today Dr. Robert A. Kolb is a professor emeritus of Systematic Theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.  See the emeritus faculty page at Concordia Lutheran Seminary:Kolb retired in 2009 after 16 years of distinguished service as missions professor of Systematic Theology and Concordia Lutheran Seminary in St. Louis. Before joining the Seminary, he served as director of the Center for Reformation Research, and in various teaching roles in the religion and history departments at Concordia College in St. Paul, Minn.  He has taken much time over many years to teach abroad. He also has been involved in several boards—serving both officially on behalf of the LCMS on commissions, and a leader of 16th century and Reformation societies. There is not enough time to list everything he has written, but I included a selection today: He is the author of several books, including The Christian Faith: A Luther Exposition; The Genius of Luther's Theology: A Wittenberg Way of Thinking for the Contemporary Church with Dr. Charles Arand; Studies of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century; Lutheran Ecclesiastical Culture, 1550-1675; Bound Choice, Election, and Wittenberg Theological Method from Martin Luther to the Formula of Concord; Sources and Contexts of the Book of Concord, co-edited with James A. Nestingen; Teaching God's Children His Teaching, a Guide to the Study of Luther's Catechism; and the list goes on. Perhaps where his name is on most Lutheran bookshelves is in the Book of Concord—he was one of the editors and translators of the most used English edition today. He also has written more than 100 articles and a collection of essays.  One of the most recent, titled Wittenberg Uses of Law and Gospel, was published in the Fall edition of the 2023 Lutheran Quarterly and is the focus of this podcast episode.Support the show Lutheran History Shop Youtube ( even more behind-the-scenes videos available for certain patron tiers) Facebook Website Interview Request Form email: thelutheranhistorypodcast@gmail.com About the Host Benjamin Phelps is a 2014 graduate from Martin Luther College with a Bachelor of Arts with a German emphasis. From there went on to graduate from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in 2018. Ben loves all things history and enjoys traveling. A descendant of over a dozen Lutheran pastors, Ben has an interest in his family roots, especially 19th-century Lutheranism, and has written several papers and journal articles on the topic. His 2018 thesis on Wyneken won the John Harrison Ness award and the Abdel Ross Wentz prize. He is also the recipient of two awards of commendation from the Concordia Historical Institute. Ben is currently a doctoral student in historical theology through Concordia Seminary's reduced residency program in St. Louis.

According to the Tartarian Empire conspiracy theory there once existed a massive, advanced regime that stretched over much of the Asian continent. This Empire's power was so great that they built structures all over the world, including in Africa, North America and South America. Buildings such as the White House in Washington D.C. and the Great Pyramids in Egypt were built by the great, globe spanning Tartarian empire. They were able to accomplish this in part thanks to advanced technology that is lost to time, like batteries powered by the Earth which distributed electricity wirelessly. This theory has spawned a community of people who pour through old European maps and pictures of 19th century buildings in search of evidence for this lost empire, then post their findings on Reddit and Tik tok. But was there really a lost empire called “Tartaria?” Or have conspiracy theorists on the internet misinterpreted an archaic European term for parts of Asia then proceeded to desperately search for evidence of a better world that was lost to time? REFERENCES Inside the ‘Tartarian Empire,' the QAnon of Architecture https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-04-27/inside-architecture-s-wildest-conspiracy-theory Shaoxin, Dong. "The Tartars in European Missionary Writings of the Seventeenth Century." In Foreign Devils and Philosophers, pp. 82-103. Brill, 2020. Graff, Rebecca S. "Dream City, Plaster City: Worlds' Fairs and the Gilding of American Material Culture." International Journal of Historical Archaeology 16 (2012): 696-716. Greenhalgh, Paul. "Ephemeral Vistas: Great Exhibitions, Expositions Universelles and World's Fairs, 1851–1939." (1989) CIA Document: National Cultural Development Under Communism https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP78-02771R000200090002-6.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walhalla_(memorial) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmenhaus_(Burggarten) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Hall_Post_Office_and_Courthouse_(New_York_City) The Singer Building https://www.nypap.org/preservation-history/singer-building/

Archives are popularly seen as liminal, obscure spaces -- a perception far removed from the early modern reality. In The Crown and Its Records: Archives, Access, and the Ancient Constitution in Seventeenth-Century England (De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2023), Isabel Taylor examines the central English archival system in the period before 1700 and highlights the role played by the public records repositories in furnishing precedents for the constitutional struggle between Crown and Parliament. This book traces the deployment of archival research in these controversies by three individuals who were at various points occupied with the keeping of records: Sir Robert Cotton, John Selden, and William Prynne. The Crown and Its Records concludes by investigating the secretive State Paper Office, home of the arcana imperii, and its involvement in the government's intelligence network: notably the engagement of its most prominent Keeper Sir Thomas Wilson in judicial and political intrigue on behalf of the Crown. As Taylor notes in this interview, one key takeaway of this book is “not to fall for the widespread myth that archives are dusty and obscure and somehow unimportant in everyday life and politics, and to realize the tremendous power of archives and the impact that our choices as archivists can have on people's lives.” In discussing the contrasts between publicly accessible and secretive collections, this research of 17th century archives highlights how “public access to archives helps to support individual freedoms and an open civil society, whereas secrecy does the opposite.” Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Archives are popularly seen as liminal, obscure spaces -- a perception far removed from the early modern reality. In The Crown and Its Records: Archives, Access, and the Ancient Constitution in Seventeenth-Century England (De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2023), Isabel Taylor examines the central English archival system in the period before 1700 and highlights the role played by the public records repositories in furnishing precedents for the constitutional struggle between Crown and Parliament. This book traces the deployment of archival research in these controversies by three individuals who were at various points occupied with the keeping of records: Sir Robert Cotton, John Selden, and William Prynne. The Crown and Its Records concludes by investigating the secretive State Paper Office, home of the arcana imperii, and its involvement in the government's intelligence network: notably the engagement of its most prominent Keeper Sir Thomas Wilson in judicial and political intrigue on behalf of the Crown. As Taylor notes in this interview, one key takeaway of this book is “not to fall for the widespread myth that archives are dusty and obscure and somehow unimportant in everyday life and politics, and to realize the tremendous power of archives and the impact that our choices as archivists can have on people's lives.” In discussing the contrasts between publicly accessible and secretive collections, this research of 17th century archives highlights how “public access to archives helps to support individual freedoms and an open civil society, whereas secrecy does the opposite.” Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Archives are popularly seen as liminal, obscure spaces -- a perception far removed from the early modern reality. In The Crown and Its Records: Archives, Access, and the Ancient Constitution in Seventeenth-Century England (De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2023), Isabel Taylor examines the central English archival system in the period before 1700 and highlights the role played by the public records repositories in furnishing precedents for the constitutional struggle between Crown and Parliament. This book traces the deployment of archival research in these controversies by three individuals who were at various points occupied with the keeping of records: Sir Robert Cotton, John Selden, and William Prynne. The Crown and Its Records concludes by investigating the secretive State Paper Office, home of the arcana imperii, and its involvement in the government's intelligence network: notably the engagement of its most prominent Keeper Sir Thomas Wilson in judicial and political intrigue on behalf of the Crown. As Taylor notes in this interview, one key takeaway of this book is “not to fall for the widespread myth that archives are dusty and obscure and somehow unimportant in everyday life and politics, and to realize the tremendous power of archives and the impact that our choices as archivists can have on people's lives.” In discussing the contrasts between publicly accessible and secretive collections, this research of 17th century archives highlights how “public access to archives helps to support individual freedoms and an open civil society, whereas secrecy does the opposite.” Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

On November 30, 2023, historian Jessica Taylor discussed the subject of her new book, Plain Paths and Dividing Lines: Navigating Native Land and Water in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake. It is one thing to draw a line in the sand but another to enforce it. This talk will follow the Native peoples and the newcomers who, in pursuit of freedom or profit, crossed emerging boundaries—fortifications, law, property lines—surrounding developing English plantations in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake Bay. Algonquians had cultivated ties to one another and others beyond the region by canoe and road for centuries. Their networks continued to define the watery Chesapeake landscape, even as Virginia and Maryland planters erected fences, policed unfree laborers and Native neighbors, and dispatched land surveyors. Using Native trade routes and places, and sometimes with the help of Native people themselves, escaping indentured and enslaved people absconded fueled by their own developing, alternate ideas about freedom and connection. Taylor will talk about how Native land provided the perfect setting for early resistance to colonialism, and about exciting new efforts to document their escapades. Dr. Jessica Taylor is an assistant professor in the history department at Virginia Tech. As a public historian, she collaborates on projects across the Southeast as diverse as oral histories with boatbuilders, augmented reality tours of historic sites, and reconstructed maps of precolonial landscapes. Her current work connects graduate and undergraduate students to history firsthand through fieldwork experiences in oral history, and an ongoing project documenting escape attempts of indentured servants and enslaved people in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake. She is the author of Plain Paths and Dividing Lines: Navigating Native Land and Water in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake. The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 1: Economic Thought Before Adam Smith In volume one, Murray Rothbard traces economic ideas from ancient sources to show that laissez-faire liberalism and economic thought itself began with the Spanish Scholastics and early Roman, Greek, and canon law. Unfortunately, Adam Smith's labor cost theories became the dominant view, especially in Britain. Rothbard regards Smith as largely a retrograde influence on economic theory. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 1: Economic Thought Before Adam Smith In volume one, Murray Rothbard traces economic ideas from ancient sources to show that laissez-faire liberalism and economic thought itself began with the Spanish Scholastics and early Roman, Greek, and canon law. Unfortunately, Adam Smith's labor cost theories became the dominant view, especially in Britain. Rothbard regards Smith as largely a retrograde influence on economic theory. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.

In this Special Christmas Story Single Story, we learn a little about the making of Christmas Puddings in the Seventeenth Century and how the ‘Littlest Scullery Maid” saved Stir Up Sunday!

The London Frost Fairs, were festivals held out on the ice when the River Thames froze over. Most of these fairs were in January or February, and the last of them took place in 1814. Research: Andrews, William. “Famous Frosts and Frost Fairs in Great Britain: Chronicled from the Earliest to the Present Time.” G. Redway. 1887. https://archive.org/details/famousfrostsand00andrgoog Davis, George. “Frostiana: Or a History of the River Thames in a Frozen State.” London, 1814. Evelyn, John. “The Diary of John Evelyn (Volume 2 of 2).” Edited by William Bray. 1901. Holman, Martin. “Frost fairs and the frozen Thames.” Art UK. 1/11/2017. https://artuk.org/discover/stories/frost-fairs-and-the-frozen-thames Johnson, Ben. “The Thames Frost Fairs.” Historic UK. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Thames-Frost-Fairs/ Magdalen College. “An Historical Account of the Late Great Frost.” https://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/blog/an-historical-account-of-the-late-great-frost/ Marchant, Katrina. “Frost Fairs: Fun on the Frozen Thames.” Reading the Past. 11/25/2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq-ZZ9CdsDk Melhuish, Fiona. “'Carnival on the Water': The Thames Frost Fairs.” 1/16/2017. https://collections.reading.ac.uk/special-collections/2017/01/16/carnivals-on-the-water-the-thames-frost-fairs/ Nelson, Jessica. “Frost Fairs on the Thames.” 1/31/2018. https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/frost-fairs-thames/ Selli, Fabrizio. “All the fun of the Frost Fair: why, when and how did Londoners party on the ice?” Museum of London. 11/27/2018. https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/frost-fairs Shaull-Thompson, Remi. “'Frost Fairs,' the Little Ice Age and Climate Change.” 5/7/2019. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/frost-fairs-the-little-ice-age-and-climate-change/ Srigley, Michael. “The Great Frost Fair of 1683-4.” History Today. 12/12/1960. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/great-frost-fair-1683-4 Staveley-Wadham, Rose. “‘The Thames is Now Both a Fair and Market Too' – Discovering the Frost Fair of 1814.” British Newspaper Archive. 1/21/2019. https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2019/01/21/discovering-the-frost-fair-of-1814/ “The great frost. cold doings in London, except it be at the lotterie. With newes out of the country. A familiar talke betwene a country-man and a citizen touching this terrible frost and the great lotterie, and the effects of them. the description of the Thames frozen over.” https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/B07684.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext The History Press. “The last Thames frost fair.” https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/the-last-thames-frost-fair/ Ward, Jospeh P. “The Taming of the Thames: Reading the River in the Seventeenth Century.” Huntington Library Quarterly , Vol. 71, No. 1 (March 2008). https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/hlq.2008.71.1.55 “Broadside ballad, 1684, describing a Frost Fair on the frozen Thames at Temple.” https://www.layersoflondon.org/map/records/broadside-ballad-1684-describing-a-frost-fair-on-the-frozen-thames-at-temple See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The goal of this "high altitude" episode is to establish a framework for forthcoming episodes covering the period between roughly 1640 and 1670. We look at the geopolitical landscape in the territories of today's northeastern United States and eastern Canada in the middle 17th century. The key players are the European settlers - English, French, Dutch, and Swedish - and the most important Indian nations - the Susquehannocks, the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Leni Lenapes, and the Hurons. They fiercely competed over the trade in fur, from the European point of view, and manufactured consumer products and weapons, from the Indian point of view. There would be blood. Subscribe by email X (Twitter): @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode Eric Jay Dolin, Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America Bernard Bailyn, The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America--The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 Francis Jennings, "Glory, Death, and Transfiguration: The Susquehannock Indians in the Seventeenth Century," Proceedings of the American Philosophic Society, February 1968

The Charter of Maryland having passed seals, Cecil Calvert, the Second Lord Baltimore, stayed in England to fend off political attacks against his Proprietary Colony. He asked his younger brother Leonard to lead the first settlers in the Ark and the Dove to the banks of the Potomac River. When they get there in the early spring of 1634, they meet Henry Fleet, an English trader who had been in the area since 1621, four of those years as the captive of one of the tribes in the northern Chesapeake. Fleet would turn out to be instrumental in the very successful first year of the Maryland settlement, at St. Mary's City. Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Subscribe by email Selected references for this episode Matthew Page Andrews, The Founding of Maryland George Bancroft, History Of The United States Of America, Volume 1 Wesley Frank Craven, The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century 1607-1689 A. J. Morrison, "The Virginia Indian Trade to 1673," The William and Mary Quarterly, October 1921