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Roanoke Colonies Research Newsletter
The 1994 Durham Thomas Harriot Seminar The first presentation was “Angels in the Time of Thomas Harriot,” by Elizabeth Robertson of St. Catherine’s College, Oxford University. Robertson first showed the change in attitude people of the seventeenth-century had about celestial objects–what was once thought beyond earthly mutability was now considered to be imperfect. This lead to a change in view, according to Robertson, that now described the universe as being moved by laws and principles rather than the personal agency of celestial beings. B. J. Sokol of London gave the second resentation, “The Problem of Assessing Thomas Harriot’s A Briefe and True Report.” Sokol argued against the New Historicist position that Hariot’s work was confined by the colonialist tendencies inherent in the Roanoke expeditions. He countered these theories by contrasting Hariot’s writing and John White’s paintings from the 1585 Roanoke expedition with what Sokol argued are the more romanticized, stereotypical, and unanalytic works of Arthur Barlowe from the 1584 expedition and Theodor de Bry’s engravings based on White’s drawings. The third presentation, “The Writings in Prison of Sir Walter Raleigh and the Ninth Earl of Northumberland,” was given jointly by G. R. Batho of the University of Durham, Stephen Clucas of Birkbeck College, London, and Anna Beer of St. Mary’s University College, Strawberry Hill. Batho discussed the various writings of Henry Percy, the ninth Earl of Northumberland, emphasizing those written while imprisoned with Sir Walter Raleigh during the early seventeenth century, demonstrating their growing cynicism. Clucas showed that through his role as patron to John Davies and John Ford, he was able to receive stoic consolations from these writers that allowed for indirect criticism of King James. Beer finished by discussing Raleigh’s contributions to the genre of advices, concentrating particularly on Raleigh’s Instructions to his Son and to Posterity. According to Beer, Raleigh’s Instructions both created a hagiography of himself and showed a forward looking Raleigh as opposed to the typical picture given of his reflecting a medieval world view. “Englishmen Describing the Non-European at the Time of Harriot,” by Paul Harvey of Osaka, was the fourth presentation. Harvey argued that while the New Historicist belief that Elizabethan travel writing was motivated by colonial desires can be useful, applying it universally distorts readings of this literature through oversimplification. Instead, at least one other motive can be seen–the desire to travel in order to bring back goods and knowledge that would improve the English nation. Using this perspective, Hariot’s praise of Native Americans can be viewed as part of a general English tendency to use travel writing to exchange information between trading partners, not simply as imperialistic writing. Michael Sherratt of Ushaw College gave the next presentation, entitled “Look at It This Way: Galileo and Paradigm Shifts.” Sherratt argued that even though Galileo was trying to persuade people to make a dramatic paradigm shift from a geocentric to a Copernican view of the universe, he used a rational argument rather than emotional rhetoric in Galileo’s Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems (1632). The sixth presentation was “The Architecture of Country Houses in Harriot’s Time,” given by Paul Hunnyball of Wolfson College, Oxford University. Hunnyball analyzed three different country houses of the era, showing that while each was different in size and style, they all illustrate the point that houses were used as outward signs of the owner’s standing. Hunnyball argued that architectural style was used as a form of competitive display, depicting references to earlier buildings as well as references to developments abroad and the latest ideas being expressed in England. The final presentation was “Mathematical Language in Harriot’s Time,” by John Fauvel of the Open University. Fauvel discussed the late-sixteenth-century question of whether the English language could be used to convey the subtle arguments necessary to discuss mathematics. Fauvel stressed the argument of John Dee, who believed that English allowed wide access to these materials, and the argument of Roland M’Kilwein, who noted that translating Aristotle and Cicero into a vernacular such as English was appropriate because they wrote in the vernacular of their own cultures, Greek and Latin. The next Durham Thomas Harriot seminar will meet in Durham, England, on December 18-20, 1995. Speakers will include Robert Goulding on “Dee, Digges and Savile,” V. Bialas on “Kepler’s Notebook on the Astronomia Nova,” Urzula Szulakwoska on “John Dee and European Alchemy,” Alistair Crombie on “Galileo and the Visual and the Musical Arts,” Sue Maxwell on “The First Virginia Voyages: The Cavendish Connection,” and Cliff Forshaw on “Satyrs and Wild Men” (representations in art and literature in Hariot’s time). For information on the 1995 seminar, contact Professor G. R. Batho, School of Education, University of Durham, Leazes Road, Durham, DH1 1TA, England.
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