The Renaissance witnessed an upsurge in explanations of natural events in terms of invisibly small particles - atoms, corpuscles, minima, monads and particles. The reasons for this development are as varied as are the entities that were proposed. This volume covers the period from the earliest commentaries on Lucretius' De rerum natura to the sources of Newton's alchemical texts. Contributors examine key developments in Renaissance physiology, meteorology, metaphysics, theology, chymistry and historiography, all of which came to assign a greater explanatory weight to minute entities. These contributions show that there was no simple 'revival of atomism', but that the Renaissance confronts us with a diverse and conceptually messy process. Contributors are: Stephen Clucas, Christoph Luthy, Craig Martin, Elisabeth Moreau, William R. Newman, Elena Nicoli, Sandra Plastina, Kuni Sakamoto, Jole Shackelford, and Leen Spruit.

Who were the First Americans? Where did they come from? When did they get here? Are they the ancestors of modern Native Americans? These questions might seem straightforward, but scientists in competing fields have failed to convince one another with their theories and evidence, much less Native American peoples. The practice of science in its search for the First Americans is a flawed endeavor, Robert V. Davis tells us. His book is an effort to explain why. Most American history textbooks today teach that the First Americans migrated to North America on foot from East Asia over a land bridge during the last ice age, 12,000 to 13,000 years ago. In fact, that theory hardly represents the scientific consensus, and it has never won many Native adherents. In many ways, attempts to identify the first Americans embody the conflicts in American society between accepting the practical usefulness of science and honoring cultural values. Davis explores how the contested definition of "First Americans" reflects the unsettled status of Native traditional knowledge, scientific theories, research methodologies, and public policy as they vie with one another for legitimacy in modern America. In this light he considers the traditional beliefs of Native Americans about their origins; the struggle for primacy-or even recognition as science-between the disciplines of anthropology and archaeology; and the mediating, interacting, and sometimes opposing influences of external authorities such as government agencies, universities, museums, and the press. Fossil remains from Mesa Verde, Clovis, and other sites testify to the presence of First Americans. What remains unsettled, as The Search for the First Americans makes clear, is not only who these people were, where they came from, and when, but also the very nature and practice of the science searching for answers.

The Joint Arctic Weather Stations were five meteorological and scientific monitoring stations constructed at Resolute, Eureka, Mould Bay, Isachsen, and Alert with the cooperation of the Canadian Department of Transport's meteorological branch and the United States Weather Bureau. From 1947 to the early 1970s as few as four Canadians and four Americans worked and lived at each of the four satellite stations, observing and collecting scientific data.This is the first systematic account of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, a project that profoundly shaped state activates and scientific inquiry in the Arctic Archipelago. Drawing on extensive archival evidence, unpublished personal memoirs, and interviews with former employees, The Joint Arctic Weather Stations analyzes the diplomatic, scientific, social, military, and environmental dimensions of the program alongside each station as a nexus of state planning and personal agency. Contrary to previous scholarship, The Joint Arctic Weather Stations reveals that Canadian officials sought-and achieved-a firm policy that afforded effective control of Canada's Arctic while enjoying the advantages of American contribution to the joint meteorological program. It explores the changing ways science was conducted over time and how the details of everyday life at remote stations, from the climate to leisure activities to debates over alcohol, hunting, and leadership, shaped the program's effectiveness. An exploration of the full duration of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations from high-level planning and diplomacy to personal interactions in the stations makes this book an essential exploration of collaborative polar science in the North American Arctic.

The literary arts represent and provoke experiences of understanding and emotion, and this open access study examines how the practical pursuit of well-being in healthcare reveals purposes at the core of our engagements with and understanding of literature itself. During the past twenty years, much admirable work in the "health humanities" has focused upon what studies of literature contribute to the understandings and the practical work-the "worldly work"-of healthcare. Such a project aims at developing healthcare practitioners who bring greater care to those who come to them ailing or in fear or faced with terrible suffering. Literary Studies and Well-Being turns this inside out by examining the intergenerational caretaking of healthcare in a manner which allows us to comprehend the nature and discipline of literary studies in new ways. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by The University of Oklahoma.