Read. Do. Observe. Take note!

Abstract

This article offers a brief overview of recent studies on note taking and paperwork in histories of early modern science. Showcasing the wide variety of note‐taking practices performed by a range of historical actors across diverse sites and knowledge practices, it argues that a focus on note taking and “paper technologies” enables us to put in conversation a number of linked epistemic practices from reading and writing to making and doing to observing and surveying to classifying and categorizing. By viewing these practices as a continuum rather than as distinct parts, we are able to further understand early modern knowledge production.

Historiographical reflections on sciences in Europe : Perspectives from Centaurus *

“…To date, the Gustav Neuenschwander Prize Lectures published in Centaurus include:Debru (2013);Renn (2015); andFox (2019). Early Career Prize lectures published thus far include:Badino (2016);Leong (2018); and Sánchez (2019).4 Before 2007, they include topics at the intersection of philosophy, ethics, and history of science (for example, on Henri Berr's concept of synthesis, evolutionary pragmatism, the nature of science). After 2007, and besides those selected in this virtual issue, historiographical themes have included the nature of scientific change, the impact on history of science of the London 1931 Congress, and the 1970s as a turn in history of science.5 Simões (2019).…”

Woodcuts as reading guides. How images shaped knowledge transmission in medical-astrological books in Dutch (1500-1550)

“…214 On early modern note-taking : Leong 2018b;Cevolini 2016;Blair 2010a and2010b;Moss 2005. Occasionally in my corpus, symbols written next to the printed text refer to written notes that are marked by the same symbol, similar to footnotes: e.g.…”