8. ‘Ingenuity’ and Artists’ Ways of Knowing

2017

The article aims at showing the complexity and diversity of the perception of time during the Renaissance in numerous sources, mainly from France. More than a simple rediscovery of the Antiquity we should consider it a multiplicity of temporal conceptions. Since the question of time in the Renaissance is entirely embedded in the complex Christian order of the world, we need to consider this historical question through both theological and philosophical approaches. I contend that time is apprehended through various scales, from the one-time event to the eternity of the hereafter, with a combination of a cyclical and a linear conception, a divine periodicity and an earthly time of the rhythms of the world, an expectation of a brilliant future in an eschatological perception combined with a deep interest for the past in order to understand the present. The peculiarity of the Renaissance is essentially in the affirmation of the pre-eminence of the present. I will analyse these issues by...

It is a great pleasure to be here today to kick off an exciting roundtable that reflects on the legacy of Claire Farago's influential edited volume, Reframing the Renaissance, and offers provocative suggestions for new directions for the future of early modern global art history.

American Historical Review, 1998

Renaissance Futurities/Art, Science, Technology, ed. C. Villasenor Black and Mari-Tere Alvar, 2019

The editors of this volume called upon its contributors to write the history of the Renaissance differently by suspending the conventional operations of time and place, two of the most cherished and seemingly neutral epistemological categories in the humanities. Villaseñor Black and Álvarez invited discussion of the broader historical effects of our precisely honed investigations into primary sources in the following terms. First, they asked us to think intersectionally about the "rise [of] the scientific revolution" and "European imperialism. " No mean task, this first requirement involves breaching geographical and disciplinary boundaries designated by long-established specializations. "Art" and "science" were more fluid categories that overlapped in ways that our modern disciplinary formations do not recognize, while "imperialism" involves studying European behavior outside Europe in the same breath (and breadth) as within, not divvying up the world into "Latin Ameri-can, " "Asian, " "European, " "Italian, " and other subdisciplinary fabrications of nineteenth century origin. Second, the editors asked us to consider the "futurities" that emerge at the intersection of "interest in fame and posterity" frequently expressed in our sources and the "recent theorizing of temporality. " This second requirement asks us to breach conventional period boundaries by thinking critically-historically , strategically-about what "time" denotes. Since "time" is itself a culturally and historically specific construction, it too invites historical inquiry. Our editors claim that writing history at these under-explored intersections with such heightened self-awareness of our own projections is desirable because "[i]nstead of blindly accepting fixed ideas about Renaissance futures, we try to rethink these developmental teleologies. "

Routledge History of the Renaissance , 2017

English Literary Renaissance, 1986

In this podcast, I will be talking about the Renaissance, and I will be explaining how it came to be conceptualized as a historical period. There were three important conceptual shifts that occurred since the 16th century. The first reconceptualization occurred in the 18th century, when the revival of Antiquity that occurred during the Renaissance was perceived as having failed to produce the kind of « enlightened » culture which is now linked with humanism. The second shift happened in the 19th century, when a Conservative reaction against modernity came to idealize the Middle Ages, while the Renaissance, identified with the « Early modern period », was perceived as being at the roots of «bad» things such as individualism, industrialism and secularism. A third shift occurred recently, in the 1970’s-1980’s, when a « postmodern » view of the Renaissance started to focus historical research on previously marginal figures belonging to sexual, religious and economic minority groups. NB: This paper was produced for the CKUT "Brain waves: student research on air" program during the month of October 2016. It was not yet recorded with the radio for funding and organizational reasons which have nothing to do with the author of this article.

Past & Present , 2017

Wiley, 2011

The volumes in this series select some of the most controversial episodes in history and consider their divergent, even starkly incompatible representations. The aim is not merely to demonstrate that history is "argument without end," but to show that study even of contradictory conceptions can be fruitful: that the jettisoning of one thesis or presentation leaves behind something of value.

Renaissance Futurities: Science, Art, Invention, 2019