Annotated Source #7

James, Jamie. The Music of the Spheres: Music, Science, and the Natural Order of the Universe. New York: Copernicus, 1995. Print.

• While this book focuses on the music of the spheres, it offers an interesting perspective on how science has changed since the Renaissance. While it was once a realm of study that would tackle questions like "Why are we here?" and "Where did we come from?" it has become a field that must deal in provable facts. This is particularly relevant to my topic as changes in the field of science were one of the responses to Copernicus' discovery, and furthermore had a lasting impact on individuals' relationship with God. Furthermore, I think that the changes that occurred in music could also be enlightening in terms of the relationship between humans and the divine. 

Learning Journal #6

In class on Friday, we discussed our projects. It was a great discussion, primarily because of the fact that I realized that I can do things in the field to take advantage of the location without actually trying to open the mouth of my research question wide enough to include it. My research can (and absolutely should be) much narrower and more focused. I'm beyond relieved. 

Right now, I'm most interested in how people dealt with the realization that the universe wasn't how they had pictured it, because up until the point of Copernicus' heliocentric cosmological theory, the Ptolemaic geocentric model was the reigning cosmology, and it was actually very well understood by the general populace. Although non-astronomers today have a relatively limited understanding of the universe, people in the Renaissance understood their universe quite well because it was so intricately woven into religion and society. (Science and religion actually worked together instead of being seen as opposing ideologies. Weird, eh?) People understood the earth to be the central focus of God's existence because it was the center of the universe. They perceived a series of concentric spheres—one for each of the planets, one for the fixed stars, and the Primum Mobile at the outermost, which was the location of God. Thus the earth, although it was the center of God's creation, was also the furthest point in the universe from Him. (To be even more specific, the center of the earth was the absolute furthest point in the universe from God, which is the origin of the idea of hell being located in the middle of the earth.) This universe system accorded with the concept of the Great Chain of Being, which described the hierarchical structure of matter and life. Men could gain salvation, and ascend the levels of this hierarchy, and thus the spheres of the universe. The Great Chain of Being was the foundation for Medieval and Renaissance social structures because it outlined the hierarchy of kings, nobles, and common men. 

How's that for a pervading universe system? It had its fingers in science, religion, and sociopolitical structure! (I can't help but think how nice it would be to have such a unifying cosmology nowadays ... even though theirs was completely wrong.)

Now imagine you're living in the Renaissance, and this is how you understand the universe. It not only organizes your life, but it gives you a sense of your place within it and of your eternal potential. Then, imagine that you find out that the earth is no longer the center of the universe, thus man no longer appears to be the central focus of God's creations. Suddenly, this concept that gave you place and purpose, and was furthermore tied to social hierarchies, isn't real. How would you deal with that? How did people negotiate the transition from one universe view to another? Specifically, how did it impact individuals' relationship with God? 

Some of the texts that have been recommended to me for my research have been The Blazing World and Sociable Letters by Margaret Cavendish, Social Relations by Sir Thomas More, works by Francis Bacon, poetry and sermons by John Donne, works by John Milton, works by George Herbert, Psalms translations by Mary Sidney, and translations of the Bible. I also think that certain works by Alexander Pope in the early 1700s, particularly his Essay on Man, will shed some light on the transition away from the Renaissance cosmological view. I may also look at Rousseau and Voltaire's responses to the Essay. 

So that's where my project is right now, with a research question focused on texts. I still plan on taking advantage of the location by looking at how these changes were reflected in art, and I'd still like to ask people (particularly clergy) about the physical location of God and the place and purpose of man within the scope of the universe, but I don't think that'll figure directly into my specific, focused, narrow research question that I love so very, very much. 

Annotated Sources #1-6

Abrams, Nancy Ellen and Joel R. Primack. "Cosmology and 21st-Century Culture." Science. 293.5536 (2001): 1769-1770.

• A discussion of the importance of understanding the science of the universe in order to be able to gain meaning from it. The authors compare today's relationship with the universe with that of the Renaissance. Helpful in terms of directing where my project focus will be. 

Cavendish, Margaret. The Description of a New World Called the Blazing World and Other Writings. Ed. Kate Lilley. Washington Square, NY: New York UP, 1992. Print.

• Cavendish continued to employ concepts of Renaissance cosmology in her writings after the system was deemed scientifically incorrect. This text is particularly useful to my project because it portrays the perpetuation of Renaissance cosmological concepts post-discovery-of-the-heliocentricity-of-the-universe.

Copernicus, Nicolaus. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. Trans. A.M. Duncan. Newton Abbot [Eng.]: David & Charles, 1976. Print.

• Copernicus's theory of the heliocentric universe broke down the Medieval/Renaissance cosmological system. I think it is valuable in the course of my research to understand the concept that changed the previous system, particularly because I presume that there were some writers who tried to reconcile the two universe systems. 

Faracovi, Ornella Pompeo. "Man and Cosmos in the Renaissance: 'The Heavens Within Us' in a Letter by Marsilio Ficino." Diogenes. 207 (2005): 42-53. Print.

• Ficino's letter, here discussed by Faracovi, covers the concept of the Inner Heavens, and the macrocosm/microcosm of man. This idea is important to how an individual relates to the universe, particularly a person living in the Renaissance. This article furthermore provides a good example for me of how to apply an understanding of Renaissance cosmology to a primary document. 

Jokinen, Anniina. "Medieval Cosmology." Luminarium. 2011. Web. <http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/medievalcosmology.htm>

• The Medieval Cosmology page on the Luminarium website is full of useful information about the structure of the Medieval/Renaissance universe, and also provides many examples of how the universe was depicted in art, which is an area that I'm interested in including in my project. 

Lewis, C.S. The Discarded Image. London: Cambridge UP, 1971. Print.

• Lewis's book provides a very detailed description of Renaissance cosmology and other related concepts (the four humors, the four elements, etc.). It's a very useful text in terms of building up my understanding of the details of Renaissance cosmology. 

Learning Journal #5

It's taking everything I have not to ignore the mountain of things I have to do and just read Watching the English. Yes, part of it is the fact that I have a mountain of things to do and would rather do just about anything besides any of them, and reading is one of those things. But the other part is that Fox's introduction to the book has been oddly fascinating to me (and besides, I am really enjoying her quirky writing style). The participant part of being a participant-observer is still so foreign to me—I'm an observer by nature, so much so that I've been known fairly frequently to not participate in my own culture, much less one that I don't actually belong to. You know, this whole field study thing is beginning to smell like a big huge learning experience... (insert sarcastic smirk here). In all reality, though, I hope that my own awareness of the true extent of my observational tendencies will be at least somewhat helpful in trying to be a full participant in London life.

Although playing the participant-observer is obviously applicable to the mere fact that I'll be living in London, it's been somewhat difficult trying to mesh it into my project. As I've been musing over the past several posts (and as other London FS-ers like myself who are afflicted with a mild sort of literary necrophilia have been discussing) it's difficult trying to figure out how to involve modern London when your project centers around dead things. However, I think that this perhaps offers us a reason to try even harder to do London like Londoners, since the bulk of our projects essentially isolate us in the observer's corner.

In reflecting on the activity from last class, I've also been wondering about what sorts of things the English value. The first thing that came to my mind?:

Let's hope Watching the English enlightens my clearly under-informed mind. In all seriousness though, I have a difficult time imagining what the English would value that would be immensely different from the US. I'm interested to discover what those differences will be!

Learning Journal #4

Last week, I did a source document analysis on an article that I have since struggled to get out of my head. It was written by two professors at UCSC, and their argument was that people today don't understand the universe, and therefore have lost a sense of their place within it. They feel that it's the role of creative people to try to understand the universe and then make it accessible to others, much in the way that Renaissance artists, writers, etc. incorporated scientific concepts into their work. Their message is one that really appeals to me, because if I wasn't an English major, I'd probably be studying physics and astronomy, and what little I've learned about the universe has been so enlightening and awesome.

Fortunately for me, cosmology was so important during the Renaissance that it shows up in a lot of my English studies. Learning about Renaissance cosmology has profoundly influenced my own perspective on the universe, and as I've spent nights under the stars thinking about them from the Renaissance perspective, rather than that of modern science, it has been a truly powerful experience. I think that those two professors were right and that we have lost our connection with the universe, which is really sad to me because I think that my own studies in literature, astronomy, and religion have given me the opportunity to have a closer relationship with and understanding of my place within the universe that have enriched my life. I think that understanding how the people in the Renaissance approached the universe, and how they dealt with Copernicus' heliocentric cosmology is a great place to start in trying to understand how we do and can relate to the universe today.

As I mentioned in my previous learning journal entry, I'm amazed by the depth of history that England has. America, God bless it, just doesn't have the same roots. It's because of those English roots that I think going to England is so important to my study of Renaissance cosmology, literature, and modern humanity's relationship with the universe (let's hope I get this more intensely focused soon!). The English Renaissance had a huge impact, and one which I believe will have been perpetuated through to today. If there's anywhere in the world today that would be likely to have remnants of the Renaissance still clinging, England's the place where that will be, and it will likely be because of the influence of the art, architecture, and literature that will have been built into English culture because so much of it is still available for people to see. The only questions are, how much is there to find, and how do I find it? I certainly can't walk up to people and ask, "How do you feel about the Primum Mobile?" or "What do you think about the music of the spheres?" It certainly won't be that overt. But I'd suspect that those who are interacting with the art, architecture, and literature that depict the Renaissance idea of the cosmos may have a closer relationship with our modern concept of the universe.

In a meeting with Ashley in early December, she told me a story about a guy who attended church in a building that had a large mural depicting Christ on the wall of the chapel. His weekly interaction with the mural profoundly influenced his perception of Christ. I can only predict that similar interaction with Renaissance concepts would be influential on individuals' relationships with the universe. I have an entire page in my notebook with questions on how to approach getting this information, and so I won't post them here now, but it's definitely something I want to explore.

While I'm writing this, I'm seeing two very distinct branches emerging. First, how did people respond to the change in their perception of the structure of the universe? Second, because the geocentric view clung for so long after the heliocentric view took center stage, has it been perpetuated into modernity, and if so, how? While I think the first is more valuable to my English studies, the second is certainly very interesting as well, and it will help me take greater advantage of actually being in England. Perhaps it would be possible to make the second one a sort of sub-section to my project? To be honest, my brain is really struggling to work these two together without making my project too broad and shallow. But maybe that works just as well? Maybe I could trace the influence of post-Copernicus geocentric cosmology concepts in English literature? That sounds like too much for me to ever chew, but at least I feel a little more now like there's a definite value to studying this subject, besides my own personal interest in it.

Learning Journal #3

Today in my Medieval Lit class, we watched part of a documentary called "Story of England." It discusses a project done in an area in England called Kibworth. The town (village? hamlet? I don't really know what the distinction would be) had a large quantity of really old documents, and they did a bunch of small archaeological digs and used some really cool equipment that detected magnetic changes in the quality of the ground to find remnants of ancient buildings and roads. What they found is that there was a settlement in the area predating the arrival of the Romans in the first century. The first century! I can't even comprehend that length of existence! As was mentioned in class on Wednesday, the US is extremely young, and we simply don't have the same kind of history that England does—Chicago and LA certainly aren't sitting on ancient Roman settlements. It's exciting in a way that I haven't thought about before. I've been so caught up in modern and early modern England that I haven't even considered the more ancient history that will be there all around us. Or, you know, under us. It also gave me more of a feeling that there's going to be so much to find in England. Granted, I'm no archaeologist and I'm not at all likely to make any ground breaking discoveries, but there's simply so much there to be discovered (and, in my case, mostly rediscovered!). I just can't wait to go!

25 + 1 Questions

Research Question(s)
How was the changing concept of the structure of the universe depicted in literature in the 16th and 17th centuries? What did the new discovery that the universe was heliocentric rather than geocentric mean for individual people, especially in terms of their relationship to God (both physically and spiritually)? How are these different views of the universe reflected in modern thought and belief?

25 Questions

1. Where do people believe God is located?

2. What role do people feel God plays in their lives? Is He involved? Are humans the center of His focus? Does He ignore us? ... Etc. 

3. Does God having a specific location in the universe change how people feel about their relationship to Him?

4. What are some primary texts that would give me an idea of how God's location relative to man changed their perception of their relationship to Him, and their perception of themselves?

5. How would God's physical relation to the earth and to man be manifested in architecture? Stained glass in churches? 

6. What sites in England would be most likely to contain such information? If there aren't any sites remaining from that time period, how would I get that information?

7. How would physical manifestations (architecture, stained glass, etc.) of these concepts affect people today? Would they at all?

8. How has the concept of God's location changed throughout time?

9. Though its primary use after being scientifically debunked was primarily literary, how did that gradually fade out? Or are Renaissance cosmological ideas still being used in literary texts still today?

10. What were the political implications of the scientific debunk-tion of the geocentric universe?

11. What were the social implications of the scientific debunk-tion of the geocentric universe?

12. What would be the best sources of information on political and social implications? Where would I find them?

13. How would political and social implications also affect religious thought indirectly?

14. How was organized religion directly impacted by the scientific discovery that the earth was not the center of the universe?

15. How exactly did the concept of the universe change after they realized that the sun was the center of our solar system?

16. How did people react to the change through literature?
17. Did people try to accept the new universe view and use it as a literary device like those who clung to the old view?
18. Did anyone ever merge the two concepts of the universe? If so, how?
19. How have people used the still expanding idea of the universe in literature?
20. What different ideas emerged about man's place in the universe after the heliocentric discovery?
21. Since the Renaissance idea of the cosmos had such a huge impact on other aspects of Renaissance life, what things replaced the universe as models for those things?
22. How much did the common people understand about the Renaissance view of the cosmos? Were they scientifically literate?
23. Was the Renaissance view of the cosmos held on to longer by more upper or lower class people?
24. How does our concept of the universe impact our thought today?
25. What would we do if we had a universe-shaking discovery like those in the Renaissance actually did experience?

Learning Journal #2

During our discussion on Wednesday, I couldn't help thinking of a clip from a TV show that I saw recently.  Here it is (it's just under a minute long): Outsourced - Home for the Diwalidays

Todd's response is so accurate—I reacted similarly the first time I watched the show myself. I really appreciated Ben's point in class that other cultures can be like a ocean wave that swirls around us, and occasionally smacks us in the face and knocks us off our feet. From what I've learned at the beach, the best way not to get hit really hard by a wave is to remain flexible. Granted, it's not a perfect solution all of the time, but it's a pretty good one. In the video clip, Todd clearly did not remain flexible. He had his feet stuck solidly in his understanding of Western symbols, and became offensive even as he was claiming to be a victim of offense himself. It probably would have worked better if he had been flexible, if he had asked someone about the meaning of the symbol and tried to understand it within its own context, rather than within the one that he had previously understood.

The first time I remember finding myself as a cultural outsider was when I was about eight. When I was a kid, my dad was in the military, so we got to move all over the place. We lived for a while in San Antonio, Texas, from when I was five until I was seven. Since Texans are very proud to be Texan, we learned a lot about Texan culture and read lots of Texas-ified children's stories. One thing that I remember learning from lots of those stories is how to pronounce the word "coyote." In San Antonio, the pronunciation was "ky-yo-tee." After leaving San Antonio and moving to a tiny little town along Red River on the border of Texas and Oklahoma called Burkburnett, TX, I remember taking my turn to read a paragraph of a story aloud in my class. I encountered the word "coyote," and pronounced it as I had been taught. Cue uproarious laughter. Every single person in my class made fun of me for that moment. "It's ky-yoat!" they said. I was embarrassed to have pronounced it incorrectly, but corrected myself and continued onward.

Fast forward three or so years. My family was then living in Panama City, Florida, and I was in the fifth grade. For some reason or another, I had the opportunity to read aloud to the class again. Apparently I had amassed enough bad karma by that time to guarantee the placement of the word "coyote" in my reading. I had spent enough time in Florida by that point to recognize that our particular region wasn't as much Florida as it was Deep Southern Alabama That Just Happens to Belong to Florida. In other words, it was Southern. And like any eleven-year-old, I assumed that Southern was standardized across the US, pronunciations of names of wild animals included. So when I had to read "coyote" out loud, I said it the way I'd been taught: "ky-yoat." Imagine my surprise at hearing laughter, and being told to say "ky-yo-tee."

What I'm really trying to get at is that, even with the very best of intentions, and trying to use what we know as best we can, we're still going to mess up from time to time. The trick is staying flexible, laughing at ourselves, accepting correction when it comes, and trying to learn from every new mistake we make.

Learning Journal #1

Aside from picking up some quality London 2012 Olympics memorabilia, I plan on taking advantage of as much of what London has to teach me this summer as I possibly can. I want to study Renaissance cosmology and its effects on modern religious thought in the UK, but turning it into a project is somewhat challenging for a couple of reasons. First off, I'm trying to reconcile the fact that I am an English major who simply cannot conceive of creating a project that doesn't directly involve literature (and lots of it), and the fact that I know going to London and cloistering myself in libraries would be a horrific waste of time, money, and experience. The second trouble is that the current reconciliation of these facts is moderately disastrous, such that I can't help thinking of one of my favorite quotes:

The magnitude of the disaster is apparent to me. My work has escaped from my control, and I have produced a monster: an immensely long, complex, rather bitter, and very terrifying romance, quite unfit for children (if fit for anybody).

Of course, that's Tolkien speaking of The Lord of the Rings, and my own little monster isn't remotely comparable to LOTR (I'm not even thinking about trying to imagine creating something of that standing). But all the same, I already feel like my little monster of a project is becoming immensely broad, complex, and (at least to me) a little terrifying. I can't wait to get it reined in!

So what am I actually wanting to do this project on? Well, through my various English classes at BYU, few concepts have captured me so distinctly as Renaissance cosmology. During the early Renaissance, people subscribed to a Ptolemaic universe view with the earth at the center and various "spheres" extending layer by layer beyond it. Shrek would say it's a lot like an onion, but I prefer to think of it like this:

Okay, I confess ... I didn't draw it. But it is a really cool picture. And not only did Renaissance people try to draw their universe beautifully, they tried to make the concept itself beautiful. I could spend all day thinking about how gorgeous it is and studying all of its intricacies (in spite of the reality, which is that the structure of the Ptolemaic universe is pretty much entirely scientifically wrong). I wish I could make a project of going to London and just spending all day thinking about it and studying it. 

But ... in the spirit of linking this gorgeous idea back to literature and taking advantage of the modern London/England/UK I'm going to be seeing, I'm going to try to do something more. Even after Copernicus debunked Ptolemy's geocentric universe scientifically, people weren't entirely ready to let it die. Their cosmology wasn't simply a scientific idea about the structure of the universe—it taught them about God, religion, society, family, and man himself. Many held on to the precepts and it was used as a literary device for a long time after most people had accepted Copernicus' heliocentric view, even into the Enlightenment and beyond. What I want to look at is how these ideas impact modern thought. How might the ideas of Renaissance be physically preserved on canvas, in sculpture, in stained glass, in architecture? To answer these questions, I plan to visit a number of churches and cathedrals in England that would have been built around the 15th and 16th centuries.

I've had an idea bouncing around in my head for about three days now that I think could potentially be a really good glue for my literature vs. modern world problem, and that is the following question. How does believing that God has a specific location (relative to one's own) change their perspective of or belief in God? The people in the Renaissance believed that God was the "geometer" of their universe, and that He lived in its outermost layer—the Primum Mobile. I suspect there'd be a lot to find about how man's physical relationship to God impacted the perception of his individual personal relationship to God. Similarly, I think I could interview a lot of people on the subject, and see how those ideas—both of where God is existing and how they view their relationship to God—compare with those of the Renaissance. 

Anyways, I've blabbered on enough about my potential plans/intentions for London at this point (probably to excess), but that's where I'm at right now!