Thomas Harriot in the Twenty-First Century: 25 years of the Harriot Lecture

Clucas, Stephen (2022) Thomas Harriot in the Twenty-First Century: 25 years of the Harriot Lecture. In: Fox, R. (ed.) Thomas Harriot: Science and Discovery in the English Renaissance. London, UK: Routledge, pp. 50-71. ISBN 9780367561376.

Abstract

This chapter surveys the history of scholarship on the Elizabethan mathematician and natural philosopher Thomas Harriot since the publication of John W. Shirley’s Thomas Harriot: Renaissance Scientist in 1974. It identifies a number of scholars - such as Matthias Schemmel and Jacqueline A. Stedall - who have substantially advanced our understanding of Harriot’s achievements and gives a partial survey of the Thomas Harriot Lecture given annually at Oriel College Oxford since its inauguration in 1990. It also makes some suggestions about areas of Harriot’s work which might be explored in the future. Book synopsis: This volume sheds new light on one of the most remarkable polymaths of the English Renaissance. It offers original perspectives not only on Harriot’s personal achievements in mathematics and natural philosophy but also on the wider realms of exploration, colonial ambition, and philosophical debate in which he earned the attention and respect of contemporaries in and far beyond the socially elevated circles of his two great patrons, first Walter Raleigh and then Henry Percy, the ninth Earl of Northumberland.　　 Harriot’s sixteenth-century world was one of unprecedented expansion in both scientific understanding and the discovery of new lands and peoples.　The essays gathered here bring out forcefully the effect of this expanding vision, encapsulated in Harriot’s　Briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia　(1588), the first detailed description of America to be published in the English language. In addition to an essay by a recent biographer of Harriot, the volume contains reworked versions of seven Thomas Harriot Lectures, an annual lecture series inaugurated in 1990 in Oriel College, Oxford. It follows two earlier volumes of Harriot Lectures, also edited by Robert Fox, that appeared in 2000 and 2012.

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