Information Renaissance

The Law of Unintended Consequences: Fall of Constantinople Gives Rise to the European Renaissance

I've been reading John Man's book
Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words
New York: MJF Books, 2002.

John Man says "29 May 1453 . . . was the birthday of the Renaissance" (Man, 2002, p. 231).

Here's John Man's hypothesis:

Continue reading "The Law of Unintended Consequences: Fall of Constantinople Gives Rise to the European Renaissance"

Henri Poincaré--the Renaissance Man as French Scientist

So at the end of a hard academic term, my mind turns to someone I want to learn more about,
and to learn from--Henri Poincaré.

Here's a good introductory essay on him from the Wikipedia entry for Henri Poincaré where you get a sense of who he is and what he accomplished:

Jules Henri Poincaré (April 29, 1854 – July 17, 1912) (IPA: [pwɛ̃kaˈʀe][1]) was one of France's greatest mathematicians and theoretical physicists, and a philosopher of science. Poincaré is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as 'The Last Universalist', since he excelled in all fields of the discipline as it existed during his lifetime.

As a mathematician and physicist, he made many original fundamental contributions to pure and applied mathematics, mathematical physics, and celestial mechanics. He was responsible for formulating the Poincaré conjecture, one of the most famous problems in mathematics. In his research on the three-body problem, Poincaré became the first person to discover a chaotic deterministic system which laid the foundations of modern chaos theory. He is considered to be one of the founders of the field of topology.

Poincaré introduced the modern principle of relativity and was the first to present the Lorentz transformations in their modern symmetrical form.

Here's an interesting account on his contributions and fields:

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How to Work Like Leonardo da Vinci

There's a good book by Michael J. Gelb
called How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci.

I've linked to the author's home page above and here for your convenience.

Yet before I linked to Gelb's page, I wrote my headline above.

You'll see why as I extend the entry with a passage from one of my reporter's notebooks
that I carried during my term as a Visiting Fellow (Professor) at Harris Manchester College,
University of Oxford in 2005.

Continue reading "How to Work Like Leonardo da Vinci"

Renaissance Music: A Point of Departure

Even in busy periods,
there is time to punctuate
the skating equilibrium of time

with a quick blog entry.

Here's a reference to
Wikipedia's entry on Renaissance Music
as a point of departure for understanding the European renaissance
"directly,"
through hearing its music,
which still exists,
lots of it,
and a pleasure to explore.

Scholars will enjoy with ironic laughter
the Wikipedia author's confession
of the difficulty of definition,
especially those from the Center for Information and Communication Sciences,
where they have to struggle
with theoretical definition
of dynamic phenomena
on a regular basis:

Renaissance music is European classical music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 to 1600. Defining the beginning of the era is difficult, given the lack of abrupt shifts in musical thinking during the 15th century. Additionally, the process by which music acquired "Renaissance" characteristics was a gradual one, but 1400 is used here.

Yet having confessed the difficulties of definition,
the Wikipedia author does hypothesize
a general definition as we see above.

Then it gets interesting. Look at this:

Continue reading "Renaissance Music: A Point of Departure"

Some good books for a course on the Information Renaissance

I have been working on the design of a course I'm calling
"Leadership for the Information Renaissance."

This course will be essentially comparative cultural studies
with a leadership and management emphasis,
noting the impact of information and communication technologies
as a catalyst for social change.

This course will develop a double perspective—the first objectives will be
to familiarize the learner with the era of the European renaissance
and its similarities and differences
with the current era of the information renaissance.

The second set of objectives is as important as the first:
to discourse on what leaders in the information renaissance need to know and to do—
a sort of contemporary Book of the Courtier, together by us as a course community,
taking the place of the original author Baldesar Castiglione—
a discourse on leadership attributes appropriate for our time.

The information outcome of the course for the learners will be a research report,
with historical sections on the European renaissance,
forecasts for “a history of the future” for our time and the coming generation,
and a practical guide--a type of management handbook--
for information renaissance leaders.

We’ll also use the capability of the Internet to build a group weblog like the successful
Information Renaissance weblog at Ball State University.

Below is a list of books that can be used for course readings:

Continue reading "Some good books for a course on the Information Renaissance"

Remarkable USA opportunity to see Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise"

New York Times reports today that
"One of Florence’s Renaissance Prizes to Go on U.S. Tour."

This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see several panels of Lorenzo Ghiberti's famous doors
from the Baptistery church in the main plaza in Florence.

I saw the door's modern reproductions installed there in the summer of 2005.

Now, in USA, in Atlanta, Chicago, and New York, we can see original panels in our own
art museums. After the panels tour here, New York Times reports
they will not travel again out of Italy.

Here is their lead, the first few paragraphs:

The early-Renaissance sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti spent 27 years creating the monumental gilded bronze doors for the eastern portal of the Baptistery in the Piazza del Duomo in Florence. And it has taken teams of conservators just about as long to restore them. [. . . a project that has taken 26 years so far.]

Their 10 panels depict scenes from the Old Testament, intricately illustrated in high and low relief. When the three-ton, 20-foot-tall doors were completed, in 1452, Michelangelo pronounced them grand enough to adorn the entrance to paradise, and so they became known as “The Gates of Paradise.”

They have for centuries been considered one of the masterpieces of Western art.

Now three of the newly restored panels are scheduled to tour North America for the first time, traveling to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in April, and then to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

This remarkable opportunity calls for a trip to one the hosting art museums, linked here, in Chicago, or Atlanta, or New York.

Or maybe all three.

"Renaissance" and "Reformation": Contemporary historians use of these terms

Here is a thoughtful and informative discussion of the terms "Renaissance" and "Reformation"
from an excellent set of essays, Handbook of European History, 1400-1600,
edited by Thomas A. Brady Jr., et al. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996).

I have reproduced some of their significant explanations and arguments as found in their book.
I have retained their paragraph structure, signaled by indented paragraph beginnings.

However, for emphasis and clarity in their complex argumentation, I have sometimes broken
their paragraphs by a full line of space.

In such cases, their text continues flush left, to show it is not an original paragraph break.
Intermediate page references should make it possible
for researchers to find the original quotations in their authors' contexts.

Here is the discussion by Thomas A. Brady Jr. and others:

"THE RENAISSANCE" AND "THE REFORMATION": TWO CLASSIC CONCEPTS

The pivotal role in European history of the two centuries between 1400 and 1600
has sometimes been questioned but rarely denied. Since the middle of the nineteenth century,
two terms--"the Renaissance" and "the Reformation"--have commonly been employed to express
the historians' sense of this role.

Each term can claim roots in an era it helped to organize.

Although "the Renaissance" is a nineteenth-century coinage,
the notion behind it descends from the fourteenth century. . . .

Rather older than "the Renaissance,"
"the Reformation" has long expressed the sense of momentous change
that shrouded the religous schism of the sixteenth century. . . .

By the mid-nineteenth century, "the Renaissance" and "the Reformation" became categories
of periodization, designating not just events or series of events but great turning points
in history. (Brady Jr. et al., 1996, p. xiii)

Continue reading ""Renaissance" and "Reformation": Contemporary historians use of these terms"

"Working Mother"

This entry is to continue my ideas regarding the “Working Mother” and the “Renaissance Woman.” In the early Renaissance period women were to fit a mold, be a loyal wife and mother. Later in the Renaissance period women began to break that mold. They began promoting the arts, and focusing on education. It was very difficult to break this mold, as they were looked at as if they were distasteful. As I jump ahead to the 21st century and think about the “Working Mother,” I wonder if women are still fighting to break that mold. Have we really progressed as much as we think we have? I know from personal experience, I have had to justify my career and educational choices to my family and friends because I am a wife and mother; whereas my husband is never questioned for his educational or career aspirations. My Christian background also teaches that a woman’s place is in the home. It seems like women today are still fighting to be a Renaissance woman.

More on Taj

The Taj rises on a high red sandstone base topped by a huge white marble terrace on which rests the famous dome flanked by four tapering minarets. Within the dome lies the jewel-inlaid cenotaph of the queen. So exquisite is the workmanship that the Taj has been described as "having been designed by giants and finished by jewellers". The only asymmetrical object in the Taj is the casket of the emperor which was built beside the queen’s as an afterthought. The emperor was deposed by his son and imprisoned in the Great Red Fort for eight years but was buried in the Taj. During his imprisonment, he had a view of the Taj. As a tribute to a beautiful woman and as a monument for enduring love, the Taj reveals its subtleties when one visits it without being in a hurry. The rectangular base of Taj is in itself symbolic of the different sides from which to view a beautiful woman. The main gate is like a veil to a woman’s face which should be lifted delicately, gently and without haste on the wedding night. In indian tradition the veil is lifted gently to reveal the beauty of the bride. As one stands inside the main gate of Taj, his eyes are directed to an arch which frames the Taj. The dome is made of white marble, but the tomb is set against the plain across the river and it is this background that works its magic of colours that, through their reflection, change the view of the Taj. The colours change at different hours of the day and during different seasons. Like a jewel, the Taj sparkles in moonlight when the semi-precious stones inlaid into the white marble on the main mausoleum catch the glow of the moon. The Taj is pinkish in the morning, milky white in the evening and golden when the moon shines. These changes, they say, depict the different moods of woman. Different people have different views of the Taj but it would be enough to say that the Taj has a life of its own that leaps out of marble, provided you understand that it is a monument of love. As an architectural masterpiece, nothing could be added or substracted from it. http://www.angelfire.com/in/myindia/tajmahal.html

TajMahal - Symbol of love

Agra, once the capital of the Mughal Empire during the 16th and early 18th centuries, is one and a half hours by express train from New Delhi. Tourists from all over the world visit Agra not to see the ruins of the red sandstone fortress built by the Mughal emperors but to make a pilgrimage to Taj Mahal, India’s most famous architectural wonder, in a land where magnificent temples and edificies abound to remind visitors about the rich civilization of a country that is slowly but surely lifting itself into an industrialized society. The postcard picture of Taj Mahal does not adequately convey the legend, the poetry and the romance that shroud what Rabindranath Tagore calls "a teardrop on the cheek of time". Taj Mahal means "Crown Palace" and is in fact the most well preserved and architecturally beautiful tomb in the world. It is best described by the English poet, Sir Edwin Arnold, as "Not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passions of an emperor’s love wrought in living stones." It is a celebration of woman built in marble and that’s the way to appreciate it. Taj Mahal stands on the bank of River Yamuna, which otherwise serves as a wide moat defending the Great Red Fort of Agra, the center of the Mughal emperors until they moved their capital to Delhi in 1637. It was built by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan in 1631 in memory of his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal, a Muslim Persian princess. She died while accompanying her husband in Burhanpur in a campaign to crush a rebellion after giving birth to their 14th child. The death so crushed the emperor that all his hair and beard were said to have grown snow white in a few months. When Mumtaz Mahal was still alive, she extracted four promises from the emperor: first, that he build the Taj; second, that he should marry again; third, that he be kind to their children; and fourth, that he visit the tomb on her death anniversary. He kept the first and second promises. Construction began in 1631 and was completed in 22 years. Twenty thousand people were deployed to work on it. The material was brought in from all over India and central Asia and it took a fleet of 1000 elephants to transport it to the site. It was designed by the Iranian architect Ustad Isa and it is best appreciated when the architecture and its adornments are linked to the passion that inspired it. It is a "symbol of eternal love". http://www.angelfire.com/in/myindia/tajmahal.html