This essay uses Arnaldo Momigliano’s genealogy of antiquarianism and historiography to propose a new method for engaging the past. The Italian historian Arnaldo Momigliano (1908-1987) traced antiquarianism from its advent in ancient Greece and later growth in Rome to its early modern efflorescence, its usurpation by history, and its transformation…[Read more]

This essay uses Arnaldo Momigliano’s genealogy of antiquarianism and historiography to propose a new method for engaging the past. The Italian historian Arnaldo Momigliano (1908-1987) traced antiquarianism from its advent in ancient Greece and later growth in Rome to its early modern efflorescence, its usurpation by history, and its transformation…[Read more]

Analysis of the story of David and the Gibeonites, argues that two different stories have been spliced together.

The ruins of church-mosques, museums, and ancient cities inform material culture as allegories inform spiritual life, invoking transcendence amidst desacralization. Drawing on Benjamin, Jameson, and Koselleck to advance our understanding of the functioning of ruins across time, this ethnography of ruins engages with the paradoxes generated by…[Read more]

Assembled cigar box fiddle. Fiddlin’ John Hutchison learned to play on a fiddle made from an Old Virginia Cheroots Tobacco box. In a taped interview he calls it a “cigar box.”

The label is under the soundboard. Fiddlin’ John Hutchison learned to play on a fiddle made from an Old Virginia Cheroots Tobacco box. In a taped interview he calls it a “cigar box.”

Fiddlin’ John Hutchison learned to play on a fiddle made from an Old Virginia Cheroots Tobacco box. In a taped interview he calls it a “cigar box.”

In this article I make a case for an analytic of atmospheres as a way to understand the seemingly ineffable yet powerful effects of vocal sound on listeners in an Islamic setting. Focusing on the recitation of devotional poetry in honor of the Prophet Muhammad among Mauritian Muslims, I seek to bring together neo-phenomenological approaches to…[Read more]

In the summer of 1704, Antonio Vallisneri (1661–1730), the preeminent Italian physician and natural philosopher of his time, traveled with a “daring soul” and “trembling feet” across the “silent horrors” of the northern Apennines: down the hills south of Reggio Emilia to northern Tuscany and the western edge of his native land, the Province of G…[Read more]

Theoretical discussion of law and narrative and their interaction in biblical historiography.

This chapter emerges from the energies and aspirations of the years leading up to the Scottish Independence Referendum of September 2014, and explores three dramas created during this period: The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart (David Greig, 2011), The Bloody Great Border Ballad Project (Northern Stage, 2013) and Rantin (Kieran Hurley, 2013). It…[Read more]

This talk presents work from Richard Elliott’s recent book about the late singer, songwriter, pianist and civil rights activist Nina Simone. It focuses on Simone’s reaction to what she saw as the failure of the civil rights movement and how that reaction was played out in her work from the end of the 1960s onwards, blending into a personal but…[Read more]

Although most often remembered as an icon of the civil rights era, Nina Simone enjoyed (and occasionally endured) a long career during which the bulk of the songs she performed dealt with the politics, pains and precariousness of the self. Her work—always suffused with longing, sensuality and the passion of being—took on, in her later career, wha…[Read more]

Whether temporally or spatially focussed, nostalgia results from a division between what is longed for and the moment of longing. This article examines this “nostalgia gap” alongside the analogous gap found in representation. The relationship is highlighted via an analysis of “holiday records”, a genre of recordings that became prevalent in the…[Read more]

Taylor Swift’s songs invite listeners to connect art and life in the tradition, if not always the style, of the ‘confessional’ singer-songwriter. From an early age, Swift has written and sung about ‘big topics’ like time and experience with a remarkable sense of self awareness. Her songs hymn youthful experience to great effect through reference…[Read more]

The beatification of Saint Teresa of Ávila in October 1614 gave rise to widespread celebrations in many of the cities and towns of the Iberian Peninsula. Printed relaciones describing these celebrations, despite their limitations —in terms of political agenda, propaganda, rivalry and literary style— can nevertheless provide information about musi…[Read more]

During an interview, Andris Nelsons, music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, stated unequivocally that sexual harassment was not a problem in the world of classical music because, “If [people] could realize how important [music and art] are…I believe they would become better human beings.” The interview was in response to the recent sprea…[Read more]

Es bien conocido que la Relación sumaria de la Historia verdadera del Rey Don Pedro (PhiloBiblon BETA Texid 3377) es una de las obras de mayor complejidad analítica en toda la literatura hispánica de finales de la Edad Media y comienzo del Renacimiento. No solo en lo que concierne a su laberíntico entramado ecdótico, del que se han ocupado inve…[Read more]

Little can be said about music during the last century without encountering the men and women who supported it financially. Pierre Bourdieu’s impression that the services rendered freely for the good of society reinforce a symbolic debt between giver and recipient complicates motivations behind patronage. Indeed, applying Bourdieu’s theory to alt…[Read more]