i like the metaphor of monasteries as hardware to mantain networks and knowledge, as the budhist invented long before medieval europe started doing the thing, and in this context, while it is true that some beautiful monestaries had or have great libraries it is also true that for many centuries the same institution that was running them was doing all efforts to destroy any vestige of secular knowledge and indepentent thought , and is still trying,..
monasteries preserved what they liked to preserve and razed, physically eliminted, the rest,
its not like there where no libraries or informed people before the monks stated reading and drinking good beer in france
be well
r
--- On Thu, 6/11/09, roger malina <rmalina@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> From: roger malina <rmalina@alum.mit.edu>
> Subject: [Yasmin_discussions] Fwd: artists and atoms: fission and fusion
> To: "YASMIN DISCUSSIONS" <Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
> Date: Thursday, June 11, 2009, 1:08 AM
> patrick
>
> thanks for taking us in a new direction ! about ITER
> as a research
> facility in haute provence and its architectural design
>
> provence of course has a very long history of hosting
> research
> communities !!! one of the most beautiful " research"
> facilities here
> is the cisterian abbey of Senanque !! it was founded
> in 1148
>
> http://www.senanque.fr/
>
> monasteries in provence of course not only served as
> religious
> institutions, but housed the libraries and copyists that
> transmitted
> knowledge for generations
>
> in the middle ages, monasteries were in a network of
> travellers
> througout europe, they werent as well connected as the
> internet
> but news travelled very quickly.
>
> Provence is also known as a fertile ground for religious
> 'heresies"
> and free thinking- the religious wars were particularly
> bloody here.
>
> so its interesting to think of ITER as a reseach facility
> in provence
> within the cultural history of monastic centers as centers
> of research
> and documentation and free thinking !
>
> roger
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: W. Patrick McCray <pmccray@history.ucsb.edu>
> Date: Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 10:45 PM
> Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] artists and atoms:
> fission and fusion
> To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
>
>
> Roger and Co.
>
> This is really intriguing...it makes me think of the
> mapping and imaging of
> the nanoscale. But I suppose that takes us away from the
> nuclear/atomic and
> fission/fusion topic. As a historian, I am less familiar
> with this seemingly
> avant-garde approaches to melding art and nuclear science.
> With regard to
> ITER - I would imagine an important aspect of it would be
> the simple one of
> aesthetics in terms of how one plunks down such a large
> facility in the
> French countryside. What efforts will be made,
> architecturally, so that it
> blends in? This makes me think of the aesthetics connected
> to the building
> of Fermilab:
>
> http://history.fnal.gov/aesthetic_science.html
>
> L. M. Lederman, ŒŒWilson and Fermilab,¹¹ in Aesthetics
> and Science:
> Proceedings in Honor of Robert R. Wilson (Batavia:
> Fermilab, 1979), pp.
> 123.
>
> These are just a few points of reference; the new book on
> Fermilab by
> Hoddeson, et al. discusses Robert Wilson's vision for a
> "lab on the prairie"
> in more detail.
>
> Patrick
>
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