Tag: republic of letters
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Henry Oldenburg’s Fear of the Post
Henry Oldenburg (c.1619-1677) had many things to be afraid of. He was perpetually short of money, he was once imprisoned on spurious grounds as a potential spy, and like most seventeenth-century people he lost numerous friends and family to communicable diseases. One other fear, though, recurs in the many letters he sent throughout his life:…
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Rethinking the Republic of Letters: Two Perspectives on the Early Modern Learned Community
Early modern scholars oftentimes emphasised the ideal of sharing knowledge beyond confessional and national borders. But was the learned community of early modern Europe truly as open and accessible as these intellectuals proclaimed? Or did the Republic of Letters in action perhaps comprise a number of “sub-republics” divided along the lines of religion, discipline, region,…