Early Modern Times
Early Modern Times is a blog that will seek to enlighten and entertain you with news, events, and general insight into the inner workings of the Early Modern Studies Program, or to choose an apposite metaphor, the internal mechanism which makes EMSP’s clock tick.
Early Modern Times is written by Dr. Simon Kow, Director of the Early Modern Studies Program.
Dear readers, Last week, John Bercow announced that he would be resigning as Speaker of the UK House of Commons on Oct. 31, which not coincidentally is also the current date for Britain's exit from the European Union. Although Bercow is a Conservative MP, he has been praised by Opposition parties and excoriated by his…
Dear readers, This past week saw two seemingly unrelated events: the UK Parliament's defiance of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's determination that Britain will exit from the EU on Oct. 31, deal or no deal; and the premiere at the Venice Film Festival of The King, a retelling of the life of medieval king and Shakespearean…
Dear readers, Britain is in turmoil after the announcement by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson that he would be suspending parliament for five weeks. Critics accuse 'boorish Boris' of using this tactic to enable a no-deal Brexit on Hallowe'en. Johnson enacted a long-standing procedure known as 'prorogation'. His detractors may well regard the PM as…
Dear readers, This past Friday marked the 250th anniversary of the birth of Georges-Léopold-Chrétien-Frédéric-Dagobert, Baron Cuvier, or Georges Cuvier to his friends, a pioneering figure in comparative anatomy, paelontology, and the theory of catastrophism (the illustration above is from the 1834 edition of Cuvier's The Animal Kingdom). Let us consider the achievements of Georges Cuvier,…
Dear readers, A current exhibition at the Design Museum in London devoted to the films of Stanley Kubrick features materials related to perhaps the greatest film Kubrick never made: a biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1969, a year after the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick composed a screenplay covering the life of Napoleon…
Dear readers, You may recall that I devoted an issue of Early Modern Times last month to the vainglorious Queen-Pine, on the occasion of a pineapple being grown in the Halifax Public Gardens. Global News Halifax has finally caught up to Early Modern Times, and reported Thursday on the 'Tropical fruit on display in downtown…
Dear readers, This past week, the now-former UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt declared the Iranian seizure of a British-flagged tanker an act of 'state piracy'. The idea, however, that piracy could be committed by a state runs counter to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), which defines piracy as 'illegal…
Dear readers, In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, let us consider voyages to our beloved yet bashful satellite (since Luna only ever shows us half of its surface) and to outer space in early modern literature. As Dr. Kathryn Morris teaches her students in the EMSP course 'The Origins of Science…
Dear readers, If you've ever wondered where italics come from, this recent article examines its origins in the context of early modern Venice's publishing industry. A local bookbinder, Paolo Olbi, is seeking to 'restore the glory of Venetian publishing and bring artisanal bookmaking back to Venice.' Indeed, although the 'birthplace of publishing' is thought to…
