Colonial America presented a new world of natural curiosities for settlers as well as the London-based scientific community. In American Curiosity, Susan Scott Parrish examines how various peoples in the British colonies understood and represented the natural world around them from the late sixteenth century through the eighteenth. Parrish shows how scientific knowledge about America, rather than flowing strictly from metropole to colony, emerged from a horizontal exchange of information across the Atlantic. Delving into an understudied archive of letters, Parrish uncovers early descriptions of American natural phenomena as well as clues to how people in the colonies construed their own identities through the natural world. Although hierarchies of gender, class, institutional learning, place of birth or residence, and race persisted within the natural history community, the contributions of any participant were considered valuable as long as they supplied novel data or specimens from the American side of the Atlantic. Thus Anglo-American nonelites, women, Indians, and enslaved Africans all played crucial roles in gathering and relaying new information to Europe. Recognizing a significant tradition of nature writing and representation in North America well before the Transcendentalists, American Curiosity also enlarges our notions of the scientific Enlightenment by looking beyond European centers to find a socially inclusive American base to a true transatlantic expansion of knowledge.
A "curiosity divide" is opening up. In Curious, Ian Leslie makes a passionate case for the cultivation of our "desire to know.
... offered unimaginable creative inspiration in a city that surprised me. Special thanks to the talented Joerg Lemke, Brigitte Hoffman, Anatoli Akerman, Santa Fe and the Fat City Horns, and Michael Grimm. At UNLV, I thank Andy Kirk, ...
Brimming with fascinating insight (Who is the highest-paid public employee in each state?) and whimsical discovery (Where can you visit the world’s largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island?), this book highlights the ...
Recounts a U.S. Army psychiatrist's efforts to establish Japanese civilian Okawa Shumei's actual role in a range of audacious war activities during World War II.
In this new edition, Susan Scott Parrish situates Beverley and his History in the context of the metropolitan-provincial political and cultural issues of his day and explores the many contradictions embedded in his narrative.
Find out in CURIOUS CUSTOMS: The Stories Behind 296 Popular American Rituals.Whether you want a new look at old habits or just love wacky facts and intriguing information, CURIOUS CUSTOMS is full of unusual, surprising bits of information ...
Lincoln's sister-in-law, turned to him and said, “Mr. Lincoln, he looks as if he meant that for you. The President replied, “He does look pretty sharp at me, doesn't he? Historians have indicated that Wilkes Booth was in the crowd ...
These are just two of the dozens of tidbits that Tammi Hartung highlights in the tales of 43 native North American flowers, herbs, and trees that have rescued and delighted us for centuries.
Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia. 44. Emma Egy Miller album, Watkins Community Museum, Lawrence, Kansas. George Garber's verse is a fine example of the “rote verse,” for which there were manuals of instruction.
Curious Unions charts how the cultural negotiations that took place in the Oxnard ethnic Mexican community helped shape and empower farm labor organizing.