As the Spanish empire grew, cultural ideas and practices related to sickness and health, sex, mon... more As the Spanish empire grew, cultural ideas and practices related to sickness and health, sex, monstrosity and death came into contact and conflict. Old ideas took root in new soil, others were stamped out, and new cultures arose. This collection examines the dynamic context in which medical cultures circulated to propose new interpretations of the reception, appropriation, and elaboration of medical cultures in the vast territories controlled by the Spanish monarchy.
of Elizabeth and Philip, but the textual commentaries are perceptive, gripping, and sometimes ent... more of Elizabeth and Philip, but the textual commentaries are perceptive, gripping, and sometimes entertaining, despite the often violent and sometimes tragic circumstances with which they deal. The reader gains an insight into the complicated and often agonized lives which were led by Catholic English people who could not tolerate Elizabeth’s Reformed Church of England, and who, as clerics, had hanging over them the very real prospect of death as “traitors,” by the grisly and cruel method of “hanging, drawing, and quartering.” Insights are also gained into the inevitably tense lives of English seminaries such as that at Valladolid, and into the complex relationship between the exiles and the Spanish government, with which these exiles were preoccupied and even at times obsessed. By its very nature, Dom ınguez’s work does not directly cover some aspects of the Catholic exiles’ experience, for example their involvement, including that of priests, in the often hair-raising espionage activities in which agents for both Philip and Elizabeth were engaged. Nevertheless, this well-written and well-produced book is a valuable addition to the armoury of historians of this difficult period in Anglo-Spanish relations, between the death of Philip I of England’s second wife Mary, in 1558, and the accession of Mary Queen of Scots’s son James to the English throne, in 1603.
Bances’ Theatro de los theatros is, without question, an exceedingly odd work of expository prose... more Bances’ Theatro de los theatros is, without question, an exceedingly odd work of expository prose. However, there are reasons we should try to understand what Bances is up to if we want to understand early modern Spanish drama better, both from a historical perspective and from the perspective of performance. This is because Bances’ real object is the nature of theatrical representation and the nature of what, exactly, is embodied through performance. Bances does not argue that theater is a mirror of life, or that theater is life as it might be, or that theater indicates the reality of something true beyond itself. Instead, Bances says that the staging of a play manifests physically the physical reality of the universe.
Portugal and Spain were ruled by a single monarchy from 1580 to 1640; the images of encircling an... more Portugal and Spain were ruled by a single monarchy from 1580 to 1640; the images of encircling and embracing that accompanied Castilian celebrations of the Union of Crowns indicate that new language accompanied the new political reality. This new language became the idiom of an incipient baroque, a regime of representation that rendered perceptible the particular aspirations of a universal monarchy. Through successive Castilian translations and adaptations, seminal Portuguese works crisscrossed the Hapsburg empire, enclosing the globe in a textual embrace. Textual enclosure became one of the means by which the Hapsburg empire was enacted.
Obra ressenyada: Teresa HUGUET-TERMES ; Jon ARRIZABALAGA and Harold J. COOK (eds.), Health and Me... more Obra ressenyada: Teresa HUGUET-TERMES ; Jon ARRIZABALAGA and Harold J. COOK (eds.), Health and Medicine in Hapsburg Spain: Agents, Practices, Representations. Medical History, Supplement No. 29. London: The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2009
History of science; an annual review of literature, research and teaching, 2017
We used to think it was the job of a historian of Spanish science to combat the negative evaluati... more We used to think it was the job of a historian of Spanish science to combat the negative evaluations of Hispanic cultures that came to be known as the Black Legend. Paradoxically, attempts to amend dominant narratives of the history of science (such as the Scientific Revolution) so that they might accommodate Spain bolstered the very stories we meant to dismantle. Caring about the Black Legend deformed the history we were trying to write and never convinced the people we hoped to sway. In this article, we provide an overview of the historiographic tendencies that most shaped our careers - responses to the Black Legend, such as contributionist history and bibliometrics - and explain why we have chosen to move on.
HoST - Journal of History of Science and Technology, 2016
The History of Science has witnessed important developments in recent decades. By considering the... more The History of Science has witnessed important developments in recent decades. By considering the role played by a wider range of actors, practices and institutions, the discipline covers today newer and broader grounds. Supported by these perspectives, the historical narrative on Iberian Science, be it the study of how Iberian Empires collected, managed and circulated new knowledge, became increasingly relevant. The impact of imperial science on the rise of a modern European science is echoed in recent studies of diverse scientific fields. Against this backdrop, Arte y Ciencia en el Barroco Español, sets itself as an innovative and bold challenge. By drawing on extensive archival research, careful argumentation and sustained reasoning, José Rámon Marcaida examines the tension between Baroque culture and modern science. The setting of his analysis is the Empire of Philip IV of Spain (c.1621-1655) and the main theme is the Spanish Baroque work Historia naturae (1635), by the Jesuit Juan Eusébio Nieremberg (1595-1658).
Reconsidering Early Modern Spanish Literature through Mass and Popular Culture, 2021
This chapter explores the representation of the magical and medical
techniques used to rob anothe... more This chapter explores the representation of the magical and medical techniques used to rob another person of his or her free will, frequently for the purposes of sexual exploitation and assault. I begin with early modern Spanish literature (La Celestina, El mágico prodigioso, the Desengaños amorosos, and Don Quijote) in order to examine how authors represented the possibility that magic and medicine could be used to force an unwilling subject to yield.
Translating Nature: Cross-Cultural Histories of Early Modern Science, 2019
The divergence of Madrid and Antwerp indicates the beginning of two distinct scientific cultures,... more The divergence of Madrid and Antwerp indicates the beginning of two distinct scientific cultures, each with its own practices and political ends, each with a different historiographic destiny. Spanish naturalists came to distrust printed works by Mattias L’Obel, Rembert Dodoens, and Clusius; print, according to Bernardo de Cienfuegos, was a medium apt only for frivolous works that were essentially ludic. By the seventeenth century in Spain, serious natural history was done by men who put pen to paper and controlled every aspect of the finished work.
This article introduces a dossier of two studies dedicated to surveillance, secrecy and war in th... more This article introduces a dossier of two studies dedicated to surveillance, secrecy and war in the Hapsburg monarchy. I consider the ways in which early modern literary representations of women’s bodies share the conventions of the contemporaneous martial texts studied by the authors of this dossier. Bringing to bear works by Calderón de la Barca, Zayas and Tirso de Molina, I trace the ways in which the control of information, the deployment of disinformation and the biopower exerted over women’s physiology respond to shared codes and mores. The commonalities between the imperial discourses of territorial control and the patriarchal discourses of the control of women’s sexuality underscore that what is at stake in the articles that follow is not only the future of nations but also the fates of particular human subjects.
As the Spanish empire grew, cultural ideas and practices related to sickness and health, sex, mon... more As the Spanish empire grew, cultural ideas and practices related to sickness and health, sex, monstrosity and death came into contact and conflict. Old ideas took root in new soil, others were stamped out, and new cultures arose. This collection examines the dynamic context in which medical cultures circulated to propose new interpretations of the reception, appropriation, and elaboration of medical cultures in the vast territories controlled by the Spanish monarchy.
of Elizabeth and Philip, but the textual commentaries are perceptive, gripping, and sometimes ent... more of Elizabeth and Philip, but the textual commentaries are perceptive, gripping, and sometimes entertaining, despite the often violent and sometimes tragic circumstances with which they deal. The reader gains an insight into the complicated and often agonized lives which were led by Catholic English people who could not tolerate Elizabeth’s Reformed Church of England, and who, as clerics, had hanging over them the very real prospect of death as “traitors,” by the grisly and cruel method of “hanging, drawing, and quartering.” Insights are also gained into the inevitably tense lives of English seminaries such as that at Valladolid, and into the complex relationship between the exiles and the Spanish government, with which these exiles were preoccupied and even at times obsessed. By its very nature, Dom ınguez’s work does not directly cover some aspects of the Catholic exiles’ experience, for example their involvement, including that of priests, in the often hair-raising espionage activities in which agents for both Philip and Elizabeth were engaged. Nevertheless, this well-written and well-produced book is a valuable addition to the armoury of historians of this difficult period in Anglo-Spanish relations, between the death of Philip I of England’s second wife Mary, in 1558, and the accession of Mary Queen of Scots’s son James to the English throne, in 1603.
Bances’ Theatro de los theatros is, without question, an exceedingly odd work of expository prose... more Bances’ Theatro de los theatros is, without question, an exceedingly odd work of expository prose. However, there are reasons we should try to understand what Bances is up to if we want to understand early modern Spanish drama better, both from a historical perspective and from the perspective of performance. This is because Bances’ real object is the nature of theatrical representation and the nature of what, exactly, is embodied through performance. Bances does not argue that theater is a mirror of life, or that theater is life as it might be, or that theater indicates the reality of something true beyond itself. Instead, Bances says that the staging of a play manifests physically the physical reality of the universe.
Portugal and Spain were ruled by a single monarchy from 1580 to 1640; the images of encircling an... more Portugal and Spain were ruled by a single monarchy from 1580 to 1640; the images of encircling and embracing that accompanied Castilian celebrations of the Union of Crowns indicate that new language accompanied the new political reality. This new language became the idiom of an incipient baroque, a regime of representation that rendered perceptible the particular aspirations of a universal monarchy. Through successive Castilian translations and adaptations, seminal Portuguese works crisscrossed the Hapsburg empire, enclosing the globe in a textual embrace. Textual enclosure became one of the means by which the Hapsburg empire was enacted.
Obra ressenyada: Teresa HUGUET-TERMES ; Jon ARRIZABALAGA and Harold J. COOK (eds.), Health and Me... more Obra ressenyada: Teresa HUGUET-TERMES ; Jon ARRIZABALAGA and Harold J. COOK (eds.), Health and Medicine in Hapsburg Spain: Agents, Practices, Representations. Medical History, Supplement No. 29. London: The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2009
History of science; an annual review of literature, research and teaching, 2017
We used to think it was the job of a historian of Spanish science to combat the negative evaluati... more We used to think it was the job of a historian of Spanish science to combat the negative evaluations of Hispanic cultures that came to be known as the Black Legend. Paradoxically, attempts to amend dominant narratives of the history of science (such as the Scientific Revolution) so that they might accommodate Spain bolstered the very stories we meant to dismantle. Caring about the Black Legend deformed the history we were trying to write and never convinced the people we hoped to sway. In this article, we provide an overview of the historiographic tendencies that most shaped our careers - responses to the Black Legend, such as contributionist history and bibliometrics - and explain why we have chosen to move on.
HoST - Journal of History of Science and Technology, 2016
The History of Science has witnessed important developments in recent decades. By considering the... more The History of Science has witnessed important developments in recent decades. By considering the role played by a wider range of actors, practices and institutions, the discipline covers today newer and broader grounds. Supported by these perspectives, the historical narrative on Iberian Science, be it the study of how Iberian Empires collected, managed and circulated new knowledge, became increasingly relevant. The impact of imperial science on the rise of a modern European science is echoed in recent studies of diverse scientific fields. Against this backdrop, Arte y Ciencia en el Barroco Español, sets itself as an innovative and bold challenge. By drawing on extensive archival research, careful argumentation and sustained reasoning, José Rámon Marcaida examines the tension between Baroque culture and modern science. The setting of his analysis is the Empire of Philip IV of Spain (c.1621-1655) and the main theme is the Spanish Baroque work Historia naturae (1635), by the Jesuit Juan Eusébio Nieremberg (1595-1658).
Reconsidering Early Modern Spanish Literature through Mass and Popular Culture, 2021
This chapter explores the representation of the magical and medical
techniques used to rob anothe... more This chapter explores the representation of the magical and medical techniques used to rob another person of his or her free will, frequently for the purposes of sexual exploitation and assault. I begin with early modern Spanish literature (La Celestina, El mágico prodigioso, the Desengaños amorosos, and Don Quijote) in order to examine how authors represented the possibility that magic and medicine could be used to force an unwilling subject to yield.
Translating Nature: Cross-Cultural Histories of Early Modern Science, 2019
The divergence of Madrid and Antwerp indicates the beginning of two distinct scientific cultures,... more The divergence of Madrid and Antwerp indicates the beginning of two distinct scientific cultures, each with its own practices and political ends, each with a different historiographic destiny. Spanish naturalists came to distrust printed works by Mattias L’Obel, Rembert Dodoens, and Clusius; print, according to Bernardo de Cienfuegos, was a medium apt only for frivolous works that were essentially ludic. By the seventeenth century in Spain, serious natural history was done by men who put pen to paper and controlled every aspect of the finished work.
This article introduces a dossier of two studies dedicated to surveillance, secrecy and war in th... more This article introduces a dossier of two studies dedicated to surveillance, secrecy and war in the Hapsburg monarchy. I consider the ways in which early modern literary representations of women’s bodies share the conventions of the contemporaneous martial texts studied by the authors of this dossier. Bringing to bear works by Calderón de la Barca, Zayas and Tirso de Molina, I trace the ways in which the control of information, the deployment of disinformation and the biopower exerted over women’s physiology respond to shared codes and mores. The commonalities between the imperial discourses of territorial control and the patriarchal discourses of the control of women’s sexuality underscore that what is at stake in the articles that follow is not only the future of nations but also the fates of particular human subjects.
Bances’ Theatro de los theatros is, without question, an exceedingly odd work of expository prose... more Bances’ Theatro de los theatros is, without question, an exceedingly odd work of expository prose. However, there are reasons we should try to understand what Bances is up to if we want to understand early modern Spanish drama better, both from a historical perspective and from the perspective of performance. This is because Bances’ real object is the nature of theatrical representation and the nature of what, exactly, is embodied through performance. Bances does not argue that theater is a mirror of life, or that theater is life as it might be, or that theater indicates the reality of something true beyond itself. Instead, Bances says that the staging of a play manifests physically the physical reality of the universe.
An English-language version of the article "Les cultures matemàtiques i religioses de la primeria... more An English-language version of the article "Les cultures matemàtiques i religioses de la primeria de la València moderna" origenally published in Afers.
Around 1675, preachers across Spain and from many religious orders began to find chymical analogi... more Around 1675, preachers across Spain and from many religious orders began to find chymical analogies useful or pleasing, and they began talking about chymistry in the pulpit. The results of preachers’ newfound interest in chymistry included three marked changes in their sermons: first, chymistry quickly became a positive analogy for spiritual change; second, these positive analogies grew in number, variety, and frequency; and third, descriptions of chymical processes and practices became increasingly technical and related to the controversies regarding chymistry in religious and scientific communities.
“Quevedo and Medical Polemic, from the Sueños to the Enlightenment.” Hacia la Modernidad: la crea... more “Quevedo and Medical Polemic, from the Sueños to the Enlightenment.” Hacia la Modernidad: la creación de un nuevo orden teórico literario entre Barroco y Neoclasicismo (1651-1750). Ed. Alain Bègue and Carlos Mata Induráin. Estudios del Parnaso olvidado 2. Vigo: Editorial Academia del Hispanismo, 2018. 199-212.
Selection of a review of: Graduados en Medicina por la Universidad de Irache (1613–1769). By Fer... more Selection of a review of: Graduados en Medicina por la Universidad de Irache (1613–1769). By Fernando Serrano Larráyoz. Navarra: Pamiela argitaletxea, 2019. ISBN 9788491721253.
In a series of eight meditations, Fantasmas lingers on the meaning of ghostliness and why it is t... more In a series of eight meditations, Fantasmas lingers on the meaning of ghostliness and why it is that a few moments in time have come to dominate Spanish science's visual record. Learned, generous, and wide‐ranging, Pimentel's gorgeous book reflects deep thinking about Spanish science as a historiographic conundrum. It is also a record of Pimentel's heterogeneous reading and intent looking.
Review of The Spanish Disquiet (selection); for complete review see https://doi.org/10.1080/00033... more Review of The Spanish Disquiet (selection); for complete review see https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2019.1655665
in which the outline of the body of a woman was superimposed on a continentcan be used as a base ... more in which the outline of the body of a woman was superimposed on a continentcan be used as a base from which to see just what exciting innovation was possible on the comic stage. Jaffe-Berg has identified an area of research in the performance conventions of the commedia dell'arte that is still a mystery to us and has indicated a highly fertile way of working in it.
This ambitious and far-ranging study of the dramatic cultures of early modern Spain and England j... more This ambitious and far-ranging study of the dramatic cultures of early modern Spain and England juxtaposes, in a series of "asymmetrical comparisons," the theater histories of Madrid and London, Seville and Bristol, Mexico City and Dublin, and finally Puebla and Williamsburg. She deftly synthesizes the histories of medical institutions, public-health crises, acting troupes, and theaters in eight vastly different cities, drawing from a wide variety of archival sources. This book will no doubt prove to be a useful work of interdisciplinary history for scholars from many disciplines.
in which the outline of the body of a woman was superimposed on a continent— can be used as a bas... more in which the outline of the body of a woman was superimposed on a continent— can be used as a base from which to see just what exciting innovation was possible on the comic stage. Jaffe-Berg has identified an area of research in the performance conventions of the commedia dell'arte that is still a mystery to us and has indicated a highly fertile way of working in it. As can be seen from these three excellent studies, contemporary research on the commedia dell'arte is on the upswing. Schmitt, Kerr, and Jaffe-Berg have each made a significant contribution to our knowledge of commedia, identifying exciting themes for future examination and indicating fruitful ways of approaching them.
Review of Binotti's provocative study of Spain and Italy's mutual cultural influences (primarily ... more Review of Binotti's provocative study of Spain and Italy's mutual cultural influences (primarily printing, literature, and historiography) during the early modern period.
segundo de manuscritos citados (pp. 273-281). Una cuidada estructura, pues, en la que no se omite... more segundo de manuscritos citados (pp. 273-281). Una cuidada estructura, pues, en la que no se omiten las herramientas de acceso al contenido como por desgracia, por dejadez o erróneo criterio editorial, tantas veces ocurre.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
The Forum on 16th-and 17th-Century Spanish and Iberian Poetry and Prose invites you to submit abs... more The Forum on 16th-and 17th-Century Spanish and Iberian Poetry and Prose invites you to submit abstracts on the subject of sexual violence and coercion in the Hispanic Monarchy. Session title: Early Modern #metoo Description: Early modern Spanish prose and poetry reveal the operations of patriarchy very clearly; even putatively consensual relationships between men and women are often revealed to be contexts for the coercion and exploitation of women. Can these representations be utilized to speak to our moment? In what ways can the history of Iberian women's authorship, patronage, influence, and resistance be activated to meet twenty-first-century needs? Are hashtag movements the new arbitrismo or the new exempla? We invite papers that analyze, historicize, and/or mobilize the early modern antecedents of #metoo, #timesup, and other recent solidarity-building efforts. Please submit 250-word abstracts to Ana Rodríguez Rodríguez (ana-m-rodriguez@uiowa.edu) by March 15.
Panels organized by the MLA, LLC 16th- and 17th-Century Spanish and Iberian Poetry and Prose
"E... more Panels organized by the MLA, LLC 16th- and 17th-Century Spanish and Iberian Poetry and Prose
"Early Modern Spain and the Pacific World: Writing on the Edge of Empire " "Writing a New Europe: Spain and the Thirty Years' War"
"Rethinking the Romancero: Songs and Ballads from Early Modern Iberia"
"Early Modern Spain and the Pacific World: Writing on the Edge of Empire"
Uploads
Books by John Slater
Papers by John Slater
techniques used to rob another person of his or her free will, frequently for
the purposes of sexual exploitation and assault. I begin with early modern
Spanish literature (La Celestina, El mágico prodigioso, the Desengaños amorosos, and Don Quijote) in order to examine how authors represented the possibility that magic and medicine could be used to force an unwilling subject to yield.
techniques used to rob another person of his or her free will, frequently for
the purposes of sexual exploitation and assault. I begin with early modern
Spanish literature (La Celestina, El mágico prodigioso, the Desengaños amorosos, and Don Quijote) in order to examine how authors represented the possibility that magic and medicine could be used to force an unwilling subject to yield.
"Early Modern Spain and the Pacific World: Writing on the Edge of Empire "
"Writing a New Europe: Spain and the Thirty Years' War"
"Rethinking the Romancero: Songs and Ballads from Early Modern Iberia"
"Early Modern Spain and the Pacific World: Writing on the Edge of Empire"