Hi NUDHLers, I’m experimenting with Vade Mecum, a new blog on literatures, languages, and the technology of the book. I’ve just released a new post on the Renaissance pamphlet, and it is designed to resonate with many topics we discuss at NUDHL meetings. Have a look, & happy holidays!
ASK
Andrew,
Brave worlds, brave new world! Keep it up, and keep NUDHL linked in! I like this very much!
I hope you have a great break!
jillana
Hi Andrew —
Great post. As I was reading, I kept thinking that “pamphlet pandemonium” in all its possibilities for expanded democracy and all its troublesome confusions of authority sounded so much like recent debates about the Internet, and especially the “blogosphere.” Then, of course, you made this precise point:
“Although this dispute about the early modern pamphlet, its circulation, and the threats it posed to authority took place nearly four hundred years ago, we live today in an era characterized by reconfigurations of the same debate. Pamphleteering then, blogging now…”
I think this is such promising research, and how you use the digital as a critical tool in probing your sources, their contexts, and how you wish to communicate your discoveries is going to be so fun to watch develop. Just don’t let your mind make a hell of heaven (sorry couldn’t resist).
So here is a question if you find it productive. Clearly, we see some intriguing cross-historical similarities between the great era of pamphlets and now. What about the differences? Anything strike you as quite dissimilar between then and now? And *what would* Milton think of the Internet?!
PS I am going to add your blog to the permanent links from NUDHL. Keep the cross posts coming and we’ll talk more in the new year about plans for the future.
Happy holidays,
Michael