Cultural History Commons^™

Creating A Gastrolinguistic Space: Food In Language Learning Materials Of Jesuit Missionaries During The Sixteenth To The Eighteenth Centuries, Zhongyuan Hu

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This article investigates the intersection of language and gastronomy in European Jesuit missionaries’ language learning materials in China during the late sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Through the analysis of three key texts, the article emphasizes the significance of food-related content in fostering linguistic and cultural understanding. It provides a thorough examination of how these texts facilitated cultural exchange, highlighting the role of food in creating a space for dialogue between European and Chinese cultures. This article introduces gastrolinguistics, the combination and interaction of food and language, to explore how missionaries adapted to and learned about Chinese culture and introduced …

La Princesse Adrosis Fille De L'Empereur Hadrien: Sainte Et Martyre, Laila Fares

Showcase of Faculty Scholarly & Creative Activity

Le présent ouvrage est l’ensemble de leçons hebdomadaires que j’enseignai il y a quatorze ans. Le vif intérêt que témoignèrent mes étudiants à la princesse Adrosis m’avait encouragé à poursuivre l’histoire en prose, au-delà du petit poème que j’avais composé en 2003 au jour de sa fête célébrée au synexaire copte le 18 Hathor. Les questions de compréhension et de réflexion qui suivent chaque leçon peuvent servir dans un but didactique ou ludique. Vous pouvez en faire une activité de loisir ou d’enseignement pour l’édification et le développement spirituel de vos étudiants. L’histoire de la princesse Adrosis relève de l’histoire …

The Perception Of Colors In Moses Chayyim Luzzatto’S 18th-Century Kabbalah, Federico Dal Bo

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The presentation concerns a passage from the 18th-century Italian Kabbalist Moses Chayyim Luzzatto’s 138 Doors to Wisdom - probably is one of his most important and ambitious works. Departing from premises of Luranic Kabbalah, Luzzatto’s 138 Doors to Wisdom consists in a number of principles - called «doors» - that are then commented and explained in detail, possibly echoing contemporary manuals of Catholic scholastic theology based on Aquinas’ Summa theologica. This work seek to offer a systematic treatment of many topics that he explain according to a general conceptual and rational framework. The main assumption of this work is that …

Volume 16: Senses And Perceptions, Magda Teter

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This year's theme, "Senses and Perceptions," encourages participants to historicize and theorize a domain of human experience that is often uncritically naturalized. How does the sensorial shape individual experience, social relations, and mutual perceptions of Jews and non-Jews? Topics might include, but are not limited to: the particularities of taste regarding Jewish cooking and food; olfactory experience and distinctive scents in daily life and in polemical imagination; the soundscapes of song, prayer, and instrumental music across confessions and in moments of leisure; vision, representation, and art; physical feelings of touch, as seen for example through fabric and dress, as well …

The Biblical Space And Jewish Identity, Pnina Arad

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The earliest known Jewish pictorial map of Eretz Israel is a woodcut that shows the Exodus and the wanderings of the Israelites into Canaan (the only known copy is preserved in the Zentralbibliothek in Zürich). A long text in Hebrew that is written on the map's right-hand side gives evidence to its production in Mantua in ca. 1560. The title of this text — the first verse of Numbers 33 ("These are the journeys of the children of Israel, which went forth out of the land of Egypt") — and some quotations from Numbers 34 that are included in the …

Mapping With Midwives: Sources About Jewish Midwives In Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam, Jordan Katz

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, western European cities began to enact robust regulations concerning the training and licensure of midwives. The city of Amsterdam refined its bureaucratic procedures for midwife licensure earlier than other European locales, and all prospective midwives – including Jews – were required to register in the Collegium Obstetricum from 1668 onward. Midwives had to attend anatomy lectures, report their apprenticeships, and pass a comprehensive examination. Although individual Jewish midwives often went through standard municipal procedures to gain admittance to the profession, Jewish communities had their own internal methods of regulating midwives and ensuring …

Domestic, Religious And Public: The Use Of Space By Jewish Women In Early Modern Italy, Federica Francesconi

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Mirian (daughter of the late Abram Israel Mora) and Rachel (daughter of the late Raffael De Silva and widow of Isach Oliver), the authors of the two testaments published here for the first time, lived in the Venetian ghetto since about the 1630s-1640s. While the former was a Levantine Jew, the latter was a Ponentine.1 In a sense, both belonged to the same family and household, the De Silvas, who lived in the ghetto vecchio: Mirian was a servant while Rachel a matron. When Mirian and Rachel each became aware of their extreme illnesses—we do not know their respective ages—they …

Inquisitorial Prison As A Site Of Cross-Cultural Encounter: The Case Of Manuel Cardoso De Macedo Aka Abraham Pelengrino Guer, Ronnie Perelis

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Prisons are often a site of cross-cultural encounter and religious illumination. People from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds meet each other and inevitably share ideas and experiences. The inquisitorial prison housed individuals who were accused of crimes of conscience and thus the encounters that a prisoner would have in a secret prison of the Inquisition would often enough center on issues of belief and identity. I will look at a case from Lisbon in the early 1600s, where individuals from different socio-economic, ethnic and religious backgrounds meet and transform each other's religious outlook and commitments within prison walls. I will …

Absconding And Chasing Across The Western Sephardic Diaspora, Daniel Strum

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Merchants of the Western Sephardic diaspora engaged in travels. Traveling, however, often raised question among their creditors whether the purpose of a travel was really for legitimate business interests or an attempt to abscond with their funds. By examining cases of creditors chasing absconding debtors and the surveillance of debtors in arrears who might be about to flee, my presentation discusses the concepts of residence and absence from one’s place of residence within a diaspora characterized by widespread mobility and secret identities and property. The Western Sephardic diaspora interwove extensive trading networks and early modern commercial techniques required traders to …

Fluid Boundaries: Rivers And The Jewish Communities Of Early Modern Ashkenaz, Debra Kaplan, Joshua Teplitsky

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In this discussion we explore an aspect of space that is often overlooked in studies of Jewish life in the early modern period: the interactions between Jews and the natural world. Our session will focus around Jewish engagement with rivers, and how waterways shaped the spatial dimensions of daily life. In European settlements across the continent rivers bisect cities and towns, and were arteries of commerce, trade, and travel. Waterways also connected settlements, were a site of contact for non-elite Jews, and, as a force of nature, impacted the lives of Jewish and Christian neighbors. Rivers could be used as …

Text To Data: Wrangling Early Modern Sources Into A Spreadsheet, Shawn Hill

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Shawn Hill discusses how to turn historical sources into data. He provides tips for preparing a spreadsheet that can be used in digital humanities.

The Expulsion Of The Jews From The State Of Milan: Same Event With Views From Different Archives, Flora Cassen

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Documents presented here come from three different sources: the archives of Milan, the archives of Simancas, and Joseph Ha-Cohen’s chronicle Emek ha-Bakha. The document from Milan, dated from 1589, is a long defense of the Jews’ right to live in Milan sent to Madrid in response to a request by Philip II of Spain who was pondering whether or not to expel the Jews. The task of writing the report of Jewish life in Milan was given to the Spanish governor of Milan, but it was a collective work put together by the Senate of Milan, based on the opinions …

Founding Documents Of The Kahal Kadosh Talmud Tora, Amsterdam, Anne Oravetz Albert

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The 1638 founding document of the Kahal Kadosh Talmud Tora of Amsterdam is well known as a “merger agreement” that brought three existing congregations together into one synagogue under one leadership council (Mahamad). It bears the signatures of 218 householding men of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish nation in Amsterdam, signifying their agreement to subject themselves to the authority of the new leadership. It is also well known that this document, along with the set of communal regulations drawn up later that year, granted nearly unfettered authority to the Mahamad. Looking at these two documents along with an …

Construction, Reconstruction And Deconstruction: Stories About Records From The Ottoman Heartlands, Shuki Ecker

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The texts were selected in light of the general question: what kind of records did Ottoman Jewish communities maintain as part of their regular communal activities. They were further chosen to reflect procedures, considerations and conflicts that accompanied record keeping and were not usually recorded in the actual records produced. In most cases the records kept by the communities before the 19th century are no longer available. While references to the existence of various records can be found in a variety of contemporary and later sources (some of which I will mention), the texts translated offer a short selection of …

Documents, Records And Early Modern Border Crossings, Debra Kaplan

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In order to cross borders in early modern Europe, travelers were expected to carry proper documentation that both identified them and permitted them entry into the region to which they intended to travel. In the Electoral Palatinate, the Jews were issued a special type of safe conduct that was tied to a flat rate tax levied on the Jews of Worms. In response, Jewish communities developed both inter- and intracommunal systems to sell, buy, and keep track of these documents. This presentation examines the safe conducts and the records and systems that developed to regulate their use.

Counting And Recording Sins, David Myers

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The documents below, from a 1635 handbook on how to confess sins, reflect the intensifying practice in early modern European Catholicism of remembering and counting offenses in preparation for attending the sacrament of penance and receiving absolution from an authorized priest. Among the originals is an example of how the “technology” was intended to work easily, almost effortlessly.

Linguistic And Formal Aspects Of Jewish Record Keeping In Italy—A Comparative Investigation, Bernard Cooperman

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

There is ample evidence for a flourishing Jewish documentary consciousness in 16th-century Italy. This is clear at many different levels—from the notarial to the constitutional, from the judicial to the legislative, from the personal and mercantile to the criminal and diplomatic. Maintaining documentary archives clearly became common, indeed normative, in a wide range of communities, apparently partly in response to pressure from the outside, partly because of an increasing level of institutionalization in the growing communities themselves. What were the models and norms for Jewish documentary and archival practice? How did existing traditions of terminological, conceptual, and linguistic practices among …

Taqqanot Qandiya And The Construction Of Crete’S Jewish History, Rena N. Lauer

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

During the first half of the sixteenth century, Elijah Capsali, community leader and rabbi of the Jewish community of Candia (the capital of Venetian Crete), collected the communal ordinances and other materials (including some lists and responsa) he deemed relevant. Capsali was a self-conscious historian who also wrote Hebrew histories of the Ottoman Empire and of Venice. Nevertheless, his Cretan collection has rarely been treated in the context of Capsali’s interest in history. Rather, it has been read as a collection of almost ad-hoc legal materials. I posit that Capsali edited these texts to construct an intentional record of his …

Strategic Record Keeping And Striving For Autonomy: Was There A Jewish Community Archive In Early Modern Frankfurt?, Verena Kasper-Marienberg

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The bombardment of Frankfurt am Main by Napoleonic forces in 1796 resulted in the almost total destruction of the so-called Judengasse, a narrow lane lined with wooden houses where the Frankfurt Jews lived. This ended nearly 350 years of oppressive living conditions that segregated more than 3,000 Jewish residents of Frankfurt and their guests from their Christian neighbors. For the most part, whatever might have existed in terms of archival records of the Jewish community was also a victim of the flames. It is mostly only through the survival of non-Jewish records of or about the Jewish community that we …

Unrecorded Justice: The (Non-)Archival Practices Of Medieval Jewish Courts, Rachel Furst

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In the summer of 1298, a wave of anti-Jewish violence incited by a German nobleman named Rindfleisch swept through Franconia and the neighboring vicinities. In Würzburg, local burghers joined gangs of murderous knights to massacre nearly 900 Jews. Among the victims was Simeon ben Jacob (R. Shim’on ben R. Ya’akov), a resident of Worms who had come to Würzburg to pay and collect business debts. Following the riots, three witnesses reported that they had seen Simeon’s dead body; and on the basis of these testimonies, the Jewish court in Worms declared Simeon’s wife a widow and granted her permission to …

Volume 14: Cultures Of Record Keeping: Creation, Preservation, And Use In The Early Modern Period, Magda Teter

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The 2017 Early Modern Workshop's theme was "Cultures of Record Keeping: Creation, Preservation, and Use in the Early Modern Period." The workshop focused on the creation, preservation, organization, collection, translation, and use of records, evidence, and information. It also examined continuities and change between chronological periods --including medieval and modern, and different cultures and settings--Jewish and non-Jewish. Among themes addressed were: official record keeping, personal records, collection and organization of information.

Even more than in our previous topic--history of emotions/emotions in history--there is such an abundance of work on records, and record keeping in non-Jewish historiography, but exceedingly little on …

Cultural Bias In The European Translations Of Thomas More's Utopia, Alisa M. Folen

Young Historians Conference

Throughout history, the translators of Thomas More’s Utopia have altered the text to align with their religious, political, or national beliefs. This paper explores how cultural bias influenced the translations and paratexts of Utopia using examples from England, Germany, and Poland from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century. It examines the similarities and differences between the original text and the translated text by considering the social, political, and economic context of both. This paper demonstrates how Utopia is a powerful unit of analysis to study European cultures during the modern age.

An Oral History Of Italian American Identity & Perception During The First Half Of The 20th Century, Joshua A. Hoxmeier

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

This paper will detail the experiences, perceptions, and memories of working and middle class Italian American men during the first half of the twentieth century and examine the differences between how the two World Wars and their aftermaths shaped the ethnic identity of these men. By looking at Italian American World War II veterans, I conclude the notion that Italian American inclusion was achieved through the First World War and the nationalism of the 1920s, especially the restriction of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, is not fully representative of both the realities and perceptions of a sizable number of …

Research And Study Of Fashion And Costume History Spanning From Ancient Egypt To Modern Day, Kaitlyn E. Dennis Miss

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Through a generous donation to Morehead State University, research has been conducted on thousands of slides containing images of artwork and artifacts of historical significance. These images span from Egyptian hieroglyphs to the inaugural dress of every first lady of the United States. The slides are in the process of being recorded and catalogued for future use by students in hopes of furthering academic comprehension and awareness of the influence of fashion and costume history through the ages. Special thanks to the family of Gretel Geist Rutledge, faculty mentor Denise Watkins, as well as the Department of Music, Theatre, and …

Pilgrimage Project, David Sheffler, Mike Boyles, Christopher Baynard, Ron Lukens-Bull

DHI Digital Projects Showcase

The University of North Florida Pilgrimage Project combines interdisciplinary approaches with digital and STEM technologies and applies them to the study of pilgrimage with a special focus on the Camino de Santiago.

Emotions And Business In A Trans-Mediterranean Jewish Household, Francesca Bregoli

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

These five excerpts come from two letter books that belonged to Joseph Franchetti (ca. 1720-ca. 1794), a successful Jewish merchant of Mantuan origins based in Tunis. At the time of the correspondence (1776-1790), Franchetti was a chief partner in the Salomone Enriches & Joseph Franchetti Company, a family-based trading firm with interests in Tunis, Livorno, and Smyrna. In the 1770s and 1780s, the core of Franchetti’s business was the sale of Tunisian chechias. These hats, made in Tunis with European wool acquired from Livorno, were highly sought after in the Ottoman Empire, with Smyrna serving as key distribution …

Fear In The Archive: Police Dossiers And The History Of Emotions In Old Regime France, Jeffrey Freedman

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The following document is a police dossier drawn from the Y series of the Archives Nationales. Compiled by a neighborhood commissioner named Louis- Pierre Regnard, the dossier contains testimony pertaining to the case of François Fromard, a journeyman quarry worker who hanged himself in his apartment in a working-class neighborhood of Paris on 29 May 1750. According to the testimony of his wife and neighbors, Fromard saw police agents everywhere and, before taking his own life, had become convinced that he was going to be arrested and imprisoned. No one, however, gave any indication that the police were really pursuing …

The Quality Of Mercy Strained--Regret And Repentance In Early Modern Law, David Myers

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The following texts come from a trial of Catherine Mundt, tried in 1693, for infanticide, and interrogated under torture. The records are preserved in the Stadt Archiv Braunschweig.

“For We Jews Are Merciful”: Emotions And Communal Identity, Elisheva Carlebach

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Assigning character traits to national groups was a key pastime in the early modern period, part of a process of consolidation of European national identities. This presentation examines the way emotional characteristics were assigned to emerging national groups. In particular, it focuses on the way in which Jewish communal sources employed language and terms of emotion to characterize Jewish communities. Internally the language often functioned to call notice to an ideal that the community was failing to live up to.

The following texts are excerpts from Jewish communal records, as noted for each excerpt

A Short History Of Horror: Early Modern Jews And Their Monsters, Iris Idelson-Shein

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The following sources offer a short survey of one particularly troubling source of fear—and indeed horror—in the early modern period, namely—the womb. A mysterious, uniquely feminine organ, for centuries the womb has been the stuff of fantasies and nightmares. It has been imagined at one and the same time as a haven and a hell, a nest and a tomb, a source of pleasure and pain, life and illness.

The following excerpts come from different genres, spaces, and languages. The first two excerpts are taken from two medical compendiums written around the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The …