Early Modern Microscopic Records: Experiencing Material and Visual Cultures

Description

Early modern protagonists tried to capture the new experience of knowing, seeing, and studying microscopic records with an emotional vocabulary that can be difficult to make sense of today. The profound affection, sheer overwhelming delight, the sense of marvel and sometimes even speechlessness resulting from viewing, exploring, and reconsidering microscopic records is referenced in various early modern texts. Today, we have lost the sense of novelty in seeing microscopic records for the first time. We therefore must rethink, and reframe, such texts in order to make sense of the affective novelty and emotional excitement of early modern experiences associated with microscopic records. In this blog entry, I juxtapose early modern descriptions of microscopic records with images taken by laureates of the 2019 Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition.