Tessera
Folgen

Daniel Williams

@dbenjw.bsky.social

Asst. Prof. of Literature at Bard College • fmr Harvard Society of Fellows • Victorian & South African Literature, Env. Humanities • THE ART OF UNCERTAINTY (Cambridge, 2024) • doi.org/10.1017/9781009436120 • www.danielbenjaminwilliams.com

36 Posts1439 Follower1833 Folgt
Daniel Williams@dbenjw.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Submit an abstract to NVSA, 16-18 April 2027, at Seton Hall! Conference theme is— TRASH —with a wide purview from waste management & sanitation to muckraking & "trashy" texts, from sweeps & scavengers to body-snatchers, & all manner of surplus and residuum... 🗑️ 300-word abstracts by October 15! 🗑️

"View of a Dust-Yard" engraving: women and children dig and sift through a 19th-century "dust-yard," dogs and ducks nearby, overturned cart and smokestacks in backgroundList of conference themes
Daniel Williams@dbenjw.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Submit an abstract to NVSA, 16-18 April 2027, at Seton Hall! Conference theme is— TRASH —with a wide purview from waste management & sanitation to muckraking & "trashy" texts, from sweeps & scavengers to body-snatchers, & all manner of surplus and residuum... 🗑️ 300-word abstracts by October 15! 🗑️

"View of a Dust-Yard" engraving: women and children dig and sift through a 19th-century "dust-yard," dogs and ducks nearby, overturned cart and smokestacks in backgroundList of conference themes
Daniel Williams@dbenjw.bsky.social · 11mo ago

If you need to read about snow-crystals for some reason today, I have something for you… ❄️ ❄️ ❄️

Daniel Williams@dbenjw.bsky.social · last yr.

“Crystal Forms: A Victorian Aesthetics of Accident” is out in JVC! I read James/Cecilia Glaisher’s snow-crystal images as a case study in accidental aesthetics—unsettling familiar stories about representation, mechanical objectivity, and lookalike forms in science + art ❄️❄️❄️ doi.org/10.1093/jvcu...

Screenshot of article abstract. Text: Abstract. This essay uses the snow-crystal studies of the meteorologist James Glaisher and his wife, the illustrator-photographer Cecilia Glaisher, as a case study to describe a nineteenth-century aesthetics of accident, to assess its limits, and to draw wider lessons for the history of scientific and artistic representation. The argument is in two parts. The first examines the Glaishers’ accounts and images of snow-crystal morphology across a range of print media, from scientific periodicals to art journals. I argue that they pivoted from an empirical and taxonomic inquiry toward an aesthetics of design, developing representational strategies that emphasized symmetry. The latter part of the argument identifies two lessons we can draw from this case study. First, I complicate a narrative in the history of science that takes snow-crystals as exemplary of a nineteenth-century epistemic shift in styles of representation, from ‘truth to nature’ in hand-drawn images to ‘mechanical objectivity’ in photomicrography. The Glaishers’ case, I suggest, confounds this narrative of the ascendancy of mechanical reproductive techniques. Second, I contend that these images have an aesthetic kinship with projects of iterative representation in twentieth-century art, and anticipate conundrums about ‘pseudomorphism’. The Glaishers’ snow-crystals offer a compelling way to talk about quasi-identical forms in science and art, not so much by discriminating among them than by accommodating, even celebrating, the variety of causal stories and contexts that surround them. Their project reveals a nascent aesthetics of accident in the Victorian era whose legacy can be traced in, and help us understand, later representational forms.
Daniel Williams@dbenjw.bsky.social · last yr.

Reposting now the images load correctly—dm me if you need a free link! ❄️ Thx to Vcologies friends, esp. @kateflint.bsky.social, @devo3000.bsky.social, Liz Miller, @mortizrobles.bsky.social, @benjaminmorgan.bsky.social—& @pfyfe.bsky.social, one of two v. helpful readers! ❄️ doi.org/10.1093/jvcu...

Crystal Forms: A Victorian Aesthetics of Accident

Abstract. This essay uses the snow-crystal studies of the meteorologist James Glaisher and his wife, the illustrator-photographer Cecilia Glaisher, as a ca

doi.org

Daniel Williams@dbenjw.bsky.social · last yr.

“Crystal Forms: A Victorian Aesthetics of Accident” is out in JVC! I read James/Cecilia Glaisher’s snow-crystal images as a case study in accidental aesthetics—unsettling familiar stories about representation, mechanical objectivity, and lookalike forms in science + art ❄️❄️❄️ doi.org/10.1093/jvcu...

Screenshot of article abstract. Text: Abstract. This essay uses the snow-crystal studies of the meteorologist James Glaisher and his wife, the illustrator-photographer Cecilia Glaisher, as a case study to describe a nineteenth-century aesthetics of accident, to assess its limits, and to draw wider lessons for the history of scientific and artistic representation. The argument is in two parts. The first examines the Glaishers’ accounts and images of snow-crystal morphology across a range of print media, from scientific periodicals to art journals. I argue that they pivoted from an empirical and taxonomic inquiry toward an aesthetics of design, developing representational strategies that emphasized symmetry. The latter part of the argument identifies two lessons we can draw from this case study. First, I complicate a narrative in the history of science that takes snow-crystals as exemplary of a nineteenth-century epistemic shift in styles of representation, from ‘truth to nature’ in hand-drawn images to ‘mechanical objectivity’ in photomicrography. The Glaishers’ case, I suggest, confounds this narrative of the ascendancy of mechanical reproductive techniques. Second, I contend that these images have an aesthetic kinship with projects of iterative representation in twentieth-century art, and anticipate conundrums about ‘pseudomorphism’. The Glaishers’ snow-crystals offer a compelling way to talk about quasi-identical forms in science and art, not so much by discriminating among them than by accommodating, even celebrating, the variety of causal stories and contexts that surround them. Their project reveals a nascent aesthetics of accident in the Victorian era whose legacy can be traced in, and help us understand, later representational forms.
Daniel Williams@dbenjw.bsky.social · last yr.

Reposting now the images load correctly—dm me if you need a free link! ❄️ Thx to Vcologies friends, esp. @kateflint.bsky.social, @devo3000.bsky.social, Liz Miller, @mortizrobles.bsky.social, @benjaminmorgan.bsky.social—& @pfyfe.bsky.social, one of two v. helpful readers! ❄️ doi.org/10.1093/jvcu...

Crystal Forms: A Victorian Aesthetics of Accident

Abstract. This essay uses the snow-crystal studies of the meteorologist James Glaisher and his wife, the illustrator-photographer Cecilia Glaisher, as a ca

doi.org

Daniel Williams@dbenjw.bsky.social · last yr.

“Crystal Forms: A Victorian Aesthetics of Accident” is out in JVC! I read James/Cecilia Glaisher’s snow-crystal images as a case study in accidental aesthetics—unsettling familiar stories about representation, mechanical objectivity, and lookalike forms in science + art ❄️❄️❄️ doi.org/10.1093/jvcu...

Screenshot of article abstract. Text: Abstract. This essay uses the snow-crystal studies of the meteorologist James Glaisher and his wife, the illustrator-photographer Cecilia Glaisher, as a case study to describe a nineteenth-century aesthetics of accident, to assess its limits, and to draw wider lessons for the history of scientific and artistic representation. The argument is in two parts. The first examines the Glaishers’ accounts and images of snow-crystal morphology across a range of print media, from scientific periodicals to art journals. I argue that they pivoted from an empirical and taxonomic inquiry toward an aesthetics of design, developing representational strategies that emphasized symmetry. The latter part of the argument identifies two lessons we can draw from this case study. First, I complicate a narrative in the history of science that takes snow-crystals as exemplary of a nineteenth-century epistemic shift in styles of representation, from ‘truth to nature’ in hand-drawn images to ‘mechanical objectivity’ in photomicrography. The Glaishers’ case, I suggest, confounds this narrative of the ascendancy of mechanical reproductive techniques. Second, I contend that these images have an aesthetic kinship with projects of iterative representation in twentieth-century art, and anticipate conundrums about ‘pseudomorphism’. The Glaishers’ snow-crystals offer a compelling way to talk about quasi-identical forms in science and art, not so much by discriminating among them than by accommodating, even celebrating, the variety of causal stories and contexts that surround them. Their project reveals a nascent aesthetics of accident in the Victorian era whose legacy can be traced in, and help us understand, later representational forms.
Daniel Williams@dbenjw.bsky.social · last yr.

“Crystal Forms: A Victorian Aesthetics of Accident” is out in JVC! I read James/Cecilia Glaisher’s snow-crystal images as a case study in accidental aesthetics—unsettling familiar stories about representation, mechanical objectivity, and lookalike forms in science + art ❄️❄️❄️ doi.org/10.1093/jvcu...

Screenshot of article abstract. Text: Abstract. This essay uses the snow-crystal studies of the meteorologist James Glaisher and his wife, the illustrator-photographer Cecilia Glaisher, as a case study to describe a nineteenth-century aesthetics of accident, to assess its limits, and to draw wider lessons for the history of scientific and artistic representation. The argument is in two parts. The first examines the Glaishers’ accounts and images of snow-crystal morphology across a range of print media, from scientific periodicals to art journals. I argue that they pivoted from an empirical and taxonomic inquiry toward an aesthetics of design, developing representational strategies that emphasized symmetry. The latter part of the argument identifies two lessons we can draw from this case study. First, I complicate a narrative in the history of science that takes snow-crystals as exemplary of a nineteenth-century epistemic shift in styles of representation, from ‘truth to nature’ in hand-drawn images to ‘mechanical objectivity’ in photomicrography. The Glaishers’ case, I suggest, confounds this narrative of the ascendancy of mechanical reproductive techniques. Second, I contend that these images have an aesthetic kinship with projects of iterative representation in twentieth-century art, and anticipate conundrums about ‘pseudomorphism’. The Glaishers’ snow-crystals offer a compelling way to talk about quasi-identical forms in science and art, not so much by discriminating among them than by accommodating, even celebrating, the variety of causal stories and contexts that surround them. Their project reveals a nascent aesthetics of accident in the Victorian era whose legacy can be traced in, and help us understand, later representational forms.Woodcut engraving of a snow-crystal with symmetrical laminae, in white lines on a solid ox-blood red background.Woodcut engraving of two identical snow-crystals superimposed, in white on a solid dark green background, with a smaller cross-section showing the structure of the double crystal at lower left.Woodcut engraving of a snow-crystal with complex symmetrical needles and short laminae, in white lines on a solid Prussian blue background.
Daniel Williams@dbenjw.bsky.social · last yr.

“Crystal Forms: A Victorian Aesthetics of Accident” is out in JVC! I read James/Cecilia Glaisher’s snow-crystal images as a case study in accidental aesthetics—unsettling familiar stories about representation, mechanical objectivity, and lookalike forms in science + art ❄️❄️❄️ doi.org/10.1093/jvcu...

Screenshot of article abstract. Text: Abstract. This essay uses the snow-crystal studies of the meteorologist James Glaisher and his wife, the illustrator-photographer Cecilia Glaisher, as a case study to describe a nineteenth-century aesthetics of accident, to assess its limits, and to draw wider lessons for the history of scientific and artistic representation. The argument is in two parts. The first examines the Glaishers’ accounts and images of snow-crystal morphology across a range of print media, from scientific periodicals to art journals. I argue that they pivoted from an empirical and taxonomic inquiry toward an aesthetics of design, developing representational strategies that emphasized symmetry. The latter part of the argument identifies two lessons we can draw from this case study. First, I complicate a narrative in the history of science that takes snow-crystals as exemplary of a nineteenth-century epistemic shift in styles of representation, from ‘truth to nature’ in hand-drawn images to ‘mechanical objectivity’ in photomicrography. The Glaishers’ case, I suggest, confounds this narrative of the ascendancy of mechanical reproductive techniques. Second, I contend that these images have an aesthetic kinship with projects of iterative representation in twentieth-century art, and anticipate conundrums about ‘pseudomorphism’. The Glaishers’ snow-crystals offer a compelling way to talk about quasi-identical forms in science and art, not so much by discriminating among them than by accommodating, even celebrating, the variety of causal stories and contexts that surround them. Their project reveals a nascent aesthetics of accident in the Victorian era whose legacy can be traced in, and help us understand, later representational forms.Woodcut engraving of a snow-crystal with symmetrical laminae, in white lines on a solid ox-blood red background.Woodcut engraving of two identical snow-crystals superimposed, in white on a solid dark green background, with a smaller cross-section showing the structure of the double crystal at lower left.Woodcut engraving of a snow-crystal with complex symmetrical needles and short laminae, in white lines on a solid Prussian blue background.
Laurence H. Tribe@tribelaw.bsky.social · 2y ago

What this long and detailed NYT piece calmly calls an “extraordinary flexing of power by a private individual” is in fact a blatantly unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’s Article I powers and delegation of the President’s Article II duties. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/u...

Elon Musk’s Blitz Shakes U.S. Government as He Sweeps Through Agencies

The billionaire is creating major upheaval as his team sweeps through agencies, in what has been an extraordinary flexing of power by a private individual.

nytimes.com

Darby Saxbe@darbysaxbe.bsky.social · 2y ago

🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.

list of banned keywords
Daniel Williams@dbenjw.bsky.social · 2y ago

6th annual 💥Vcologies Early Career Paper Prize💥! Please share/RT! If you have a paper that fits the bill, “ecological thinking in the Anglophone world from 1750-1945,” do consider submitting! Deadline: Jan. 31, 2025 Award: $250

The Vcologies Working Group announces the 2025 Early Career Paper Prize. The prize recognizes work by rising scholars that exemplifies the Vcologies effort to consider ecological thinking in the Anglophone world from 1750-1945. Early career scholars working in any field are eligible. Graduate students and contingently employed colleagues are especially encouraged to submit. "Early career" is defined as a scholar of any rank or affiliation who is working toward a PhD, or who has received the PhD in the past three calendar years (2021 or later). PhDs from 2020 are also eligible to apply in cases where parental duties or medical leave have affected research. The winning paper will be selected according to three criteria: (1) Potential significance for Victorian studies and its relation to the study of ecology, broadly construed; (2) Quality and depth of scholarly research and interpretation; (3) Clarity and effectiveness of presentation. Papers will be anonymized before being forwarded to three judges. The prize award is $250 Submission Guidelines The prize is open to papers of no more than 3,500 words (not including notes, image captions, or references) written by early career scholars. Please submit papers in MS Word or PDF (with no identifying information on the document itself), along with (as a separate document) a cover sheet stating (1) your name, (2) year of Ph.D. (or year expected), (3) name of your degree-granting institution, (4) title of your essay, and (5) contact information, to Kathleen Frederickson at kfrederickson@ucdavis.edu. Submission deadline is January 31, 2025.
Anna Kornbluh@annakornbluh.bsky.social · 2y ago

how, specifically, does freezing research dollars hurt your state's economy? link for deets by state. keep in mind this is separate from all the other programs that support public schools, provide food for kids, supplies for hospitals, equipment for infrastructure. www.faseb.org/science-poli...

Federal Research Funding Data

We advance health and well-being by promoting research and education in biological and biomedical sciences through collaborative advocacy and service to our societies and their members.

faseb.org

Daniel Williams@dbenjw.bsky.social · 2y ago

✨“the realist novel’s embrace of doubtful futurity is fundamental to its efforts at verisimilitude.”✨ Gratified by this alert, generous, sympathetic review of my book by Alicia Rix in @thetls.bsky.social! buff.ly/4asoJpL

Indecision in the Victorian novel

“You can never be sure of weather till ’tis past”, gloomily avers Michael Henchard, the hero of The Mayor of Casterbridge. A familiar and profitless

buff.ly

The TLS@thetls.bsky.social · 2y ago

'...the habit of speculation is rife in Victorian fiction, and particularly incurable among Thomas Hardy’s fortune-tellers and gamblers.' Alicia Rix on indecision in the Victorian novel

Daniel Williams@dbenjw.bsky.social · 2y ago

✨“the realist novel’s embrace of doubtful futurity is fundamental to its efforts at verisimilitude.”✨ Gratified by this alert, generous, sympathetic review of my book by Alicia Rix in @thetls.bsky.social! buff.ly/4asoJpL

Indecision in the Victorian novel

“You can never be sure of weather till ’tis past”, gloomily avers Michael Henchard, the hero of The Mayor of Casterbridge. A familiar and profitless

buff.ly

The TLS@thetls.bsky.social · 2y ago

'...the habit of speculation is rife in Victorian fiction, and particularly incurable among Thomas Hardy’s fortune-tellers and gamblers.' Alicia Rix on indecision in the Victorian novel

Daniel Williams@dbenjw.bsky.social · 2y ago

6th annual 💥Vcologies Early Career Paper Prize💥! Please share/RT! If you have a paper that fits the bill, “ecological thinking in the Anglophone world from 1750-1945,” do consider submitting! Deadline: Jan. 31, 2025 Award: $250

The Vcologies Working Group announces the 2025 Early Career Paper Prize. The prize recognizes work by rising scholars that exemplifies the Vcologies effort to consider ecological thinking in the Anglophone world from 1750-1945. Early career scholars working in any field are eligible. Graduate students and contingently employed colleagues are especially encouraged to submit. "Early career" is defined as a scholar of any rank or affiliation who is working toward a PhD, or who has received the PhD in the past three calendar years (2021 or later). PhDs from 2020 are also eligible to apply in cases where parental duties or medical leave have affected research. The winning paper will be selected according to three criteria: (1) Potential significance for Victorian studies and its relation to the study of ecology, broadly construed; (2) Quality and depth of scholarly research and interpretation; (3) Clarity and effectiveness of presentation. Papers will be anonymized before being forwarded to three judges. The prize award is $250 Submission Guidelines The prize is open to papers of no more than 3,500 words (not including notes, image captions, or references) written by early career scholars. Please submit papers in MS Word or PDF (with no identifying information on the document itself), along with (as a separate document) a cover sheet stating (1) your name, (2) year of Ph.D. (or year expected), (3) name of your degree-granting institution, (4) title of your essay, and (5) contact information, to Kathleen Frederickson at kfrederickson@ucdavis.edu. Submission deadline is January 31, 2025.
S
Simon Stern@simon8.bsky.social · 2y ago

@emmadavenport.bsky.social @navsa.bsky.social @clareclarke.bsky.social @aliped.bsky.social @nathankhensley.bsky.social @taliaschaffer.bsky.social @christopherpittard.bsky.social @dbenjw.bsky.social @susannegruss.bsky.social @c19qmul.bsky.social @19birkbeck.bsky.social

SSimon Stern@simon8.bsky.social · 2y ago

Routledge Handbook of Victorian Rebels www.routledge.com/The-Routledg... - pub this Feb but if your library has a T&F subscription you can access the chapters here: www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/1... / @victoriancommons.bsky.social @victstudies.bsky.social @sarahebull.bsky.social