Full text
| |
| Author(s): |
Bruno Galeano de Oliveira Gonçalves
Total Authors: 1
|
| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) |
| Defense date: | 2023-04-17 |
| Examining board members: |
Miguel Soares Palmeira;
João de Azevedo e Dias Duarte;
Eunice Ostrensky;
João Paulo Garrido Pimenta
|
| Advisor: | Miguel Soares Palmeira; Luís Filipe Silverio Lima |
| Abstract | |
To explore the making of history in John Selden (1584-1654) charts a path for understanding the crafting and uses of antiquarian historical knowledge as well as the social and scholarly practices that shaped this kind of intellectual manufacture in 17th century England. Selden was a very much celebrated jurist, antiquarian, and scholar, famous for his historical works and someone who frequently applied himself to the study of the past in order to face political and theoretical questions. One of those issues at that time was tithes. The Historie of Tithes (1618) is a well-known work written by Selden and it was surely his most controversial piece. Both the book and its author give anchorage to this thesis: chapters always begin or come back to them by the end. In this thesis, Selden and his Historie are analysed on several levels: by the biographical layers that overlap and give meaning to the author (chapter 1); by the intellectual routines which shaped Selden\'s antiquarian way of writing history (i.e. collection and synchronism) (chapter 2); by the material, discursive, and political making of his Historie in the context of the dispute over tithes in early modern England (chapter 3); and by the controversy concerning Selden\'s Historie and what it can reveal on values, practices, and disputes in scholarly community. In those chapters, several findings are brought to light, such as the enduring effort by biographical literature to tear apart politics and scholarship, the meanings for collection, synchronism, and anachronism in early modern historical culture, or the key role performed by friendship, controversy, and moral values in the interactions among scholars. And those particular findings lead to a broad conclusion: Selden\'s Historie taken as a collection or a sort of library reveals, firstly, a specific making of historical knowledge (i.e. the study of antiquities) crucial for establishing a chronological order of time and an investigative attitude towards the past, which puzzled many men of letters; secondly, this way of making of history put books and other materials in motion and it distributed not only information and ideas but also moral values and social relations, feeding Selden with prestige and social place within and outside the scholarly community. When he was confronted with the doctrinal consequences of his Historie, Selden felt the need to defend (before any argument he could have) his own fame as a trustworthy scholar for it guarantee his belonging both to letters and politics. (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 16/22915-9 - Anachronism and the writing of history in John Selden: synchronism, cronology and politics |
| Grantee: | Bruno Galeano de Oliveira Gonçalves |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate |