21,095 research outputs found
Report on Meteorological Research March 1, 1935 (m-1)
No full textThe object of the report was to elucidate in detail the various features of the research program in meteorology being carried on at the Daniel Guggenheim Airship Institute in Akron, Ohio. Mr. L. J. Fangman, of the U.S. Weather Bureau, was collaborating with the author in carrying out work such as a study of autographic records of the various meteorological elements during frontal passages with a view to the possible prediction of the intensity of the accompanying disturbance as it may affect the operation of aircraft and a study of atmospheric gustiness with a view to finding the dependence between frequency end amplitude of velocity fluctuations and the vertical temperature and velocity gradients
Samuel Johnson and the vocation of the author
No full textMuch has been written about Samuel Johnson as a Christian, and much about him as an author; this study is about where the two meet, in the idea of the literary vocation. Though Johnson only uses the word âvocationâ a handful of times, it holds both the quotidian sense of a job and the more exalted notion of a divine call, a tension which informs Johnsonâs thinking.
I begin with Johnsonâs development as a religious writer, influenced by William Lawâs contention that any form of life can be devout and holy, and by Bernard Mandevilleâs unsentimental candour. Johnsonâs writing bears the marks of both. He revised Irene, for instance, to make it less overtly Christian: a reminder that Johnsonâs religious convictions bring an invisible pressure to bear on apparently secular works. In his early years on the Gentlemanâs Magazine Johnson develops the principle that authorship, being a public act, carries great responsibilities.
It is, in fact, a vocation, and unpacking this concept takes up Chapter 2. Johnson sees writing as a potential form of public service, adding that a solitary writer ânaturally sinks from omission to forgetfulness of social dutiesâ. Too few commentators have grasped that Johnson sees morality in social terms â as a matter of answering the needs of others, according to oneâs place in an order overseen by divine providence. But again and again he refers to the human need âto seek from one another assistance and supportâ (Rambler 104). Instances of mutual help âby frequent reciprocations of beneficence unite mankind in society and friendshipâ. Johnsonâs well-known emphasis on friendship is only one expression of this deeper sense that society is held together by trust; and therefore, by the truth. Writersâ communication of truth defines their own social duties.
While Johnson can sound close to Shaftesbury when he writes of mankindâs sociability, there is really a significant gap between them, because Johnsonâs view of human nature is more jaded. He expects people to hurt each other for the same reasons they help each other; and he recognises a strong tendency towards pride and superiority â especially among writers, who are tempted to cut themselves off from society.
Chapter 3 deals in more depth with a writerâs social role, which is simply expressed as the ability to put the truth memorably. Borrowing from a tradition which stretches back to Seneca at least, Johnson believes that a writer becomes a âbenefactor of mankindâ by putting the useful, but readily forgotten, principles of the good life into memorable forms. Drawing on Lockeâs account of the memory, and deviating from Lockeâs account of moral action, he suggests that literature has a power to move the reason and the passions at once â hence his demand that poetry be both true and pleasurable. While this resembles the Horatian formula of dulce et utile, Johnson added to it a sense of writersâ and readersâ experience of the text: how âimpressionsâ are transferred from the world, via the writer, to the text, and so to the reader. Learning how to persuade the audience, however, necessitates first-hand acquaintance with the world.
Hence the subjects of Chapters 4 and 5, which are pride and humility respectively. Pride separates the author from the social world, making them ineffectual and unable to communicate truth. The âLivesâ of Swift and Milton establish this partly through their ridicule of the two subjects: though Johnson did not think ridicule established truth, it did restore a balance upset by an authorâs singularity.
âSingularityâ is the word Johnson uses to encapsulate Swiftâs faults: he was âfond of singularity, and desirous to make a mode of happiness for himself, different from the general course of things and order of Providenceâ. Milton, too, is condemned for his arrogance â but even more in order to correct the idolatry of his admirers. Johnson believes that Milton is being written about with absurd reverence, and so puts him back in his place â as just another member of society, with a role to fulfil.
Accepting that place involves a measure of humility. The question of the âdignity of literatureâ, a contested point during the nineteenth century, was alive in Johnsonâs time, and through his associations with what he himself called âGrub Streetâ, he lived and worked among many writers who might be thought undignified. Yet in the obscurity of the hacks Johnson found something to praise â an industrious, humble service opposed to the âletterâd arroganceâ of self-satisfied authors. â[T]he humble author of journals and gazettes must be considered as a liberal dispenser of beneficial knowledgeâ (Rambler 145). By stooping to be merely useful, journalists become great. Particularly in the Journey to the Western Islands, Johnson divests himself of authorial dignity, drawing attention to his own mistakes and omissions.
Such a humdrum view of the writerâs role, which placed the emphasis on the reader, put Johnson at odds with most of the prominent Romantics â and the scale of their revulsion from Johnson needs two chapters to be dealt with. Chapter 6 argues that their critique, especially that of Hazlitt and Coleridge, was above all about the question of the writerâs vocation: and for that reason, Shakespeare was the most contested ground â for Coleridge, Johnsonâs Shakespeare criticism was impertinent âfilthâ aimed at âthe greatest man that ever put on and put off mortalityâ. But that was exactly the kind of idolatrous view of authorship â what Hazlitt called approvingly âoverstrained enthusiasmâ â which Johnson wanted to challenge.
However, many of the Romanticsâ criticisms misrepresented Johnson; he was a more flexible thinker than they realised. In a final chapter, I look at the aftermath of the Romantics: how their accusation that Johnson was too narrow and bigoted to understand Shakespeare is echoed in Macaulay, and even in sympathetic readers like Matthew Arnold, and has dogged Johnson all the way to the present day. And I point out that the Romantic exaltation of the author has faced its own backlash, in ways that suggest Johnson might have seen more clearly than the Romantics thought.</p
(Fourth) Report on Meteorological Activities at the DGAI (8-1-36)(Weather Bureau Copy)
No full textThis report is on the investigations of frontal phenomena at the Daniel Guggenheim Airship Institute in Akron, Ohio from January 1, 1935 through August 1, 1936. The investigation was carried out with the cooperation of the U.S. Bureau of Aeronautics, the U.S. Weather Bureau, the California Institute of Technology, and the Guggenheim Airship Institute. Mr. R.C. Robinson of the Weather Bureau cooperated with the author in carrying out the investigation. The object of the investigation was to determine the intensity of the atmospheric disturbances (i.e. rapidity of wind shift and gustiness) accompanying the passage of cold fronts, along with a study of the characteristics of the air masses involved and other features which might affect the intensity of the disturbance. The report treated thirty cold fronts which passed the station during 1935 to 1936
Archives and Images as Repositories of Time, Language, and Forms from the Past: A Conversation with Daniel Eisenberg
No full textDawkins, Hitchens, Dennett y Harris: El nuevo ateísmo
No full textRichard Dawkin’s The God Delusion, Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell, Christopher Hitchens’ God is not Great, and Sam Harris’ The End of Faith were published from 2004 to 2007. The new atheism was widely spread by these books. Compared to other atheisms, the particularity of this movement is rooted in its motivations, which are in a sense mostly cultural and political, rather than strictly circumscribed to philosophical issues. The goal of this note is to characterize the new atheism through the arguments given by the four referred book
Daniel Akech
No full textabstract: Daniel was a little boy when the war came to his village. He witnessed people being shot and running for shelter. There was no food or water so he drank urine and ate tree leaves.
“Lost Boys Found” is an ongoing, interdisciplinary project that is collecting, recording and archiving the oral histories of the Lost Boys/Girls of Sudan. The collection is a work-in-progress, seeking to record the oral history of as many Lost Boys/Girls as are willing, and will be used in a future book.Age: 24Region: Upper NileThis picture and bio was donated to the "Lost Boys Found" oral history project from The Arizona Lost Boys Cente
Daniel Emmett postcard
No full textPostcard of Daniel Emmett and his home in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Emmett is considered to be the author of the antebellum song "Dixie," written in 1859, which became the unofficial song of the Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. He was born in Mount Vernon in 1815 and taught himself the fiddle, and later became associated with minstrel shows and helped to define that genre. Minstrel shows traveled around the United States, presenting skits and musical performances. Emmett also composed many other songs, including "Old Dan Tucker," "Turkey in the Straw," and "The Blue Tail Fly." He died in 1904
Daniel Jau Maper
No full textabstract: Daniel Jau Maper was herding cattle when Arabs attacked his village.
“Lost Boys Found” is an ongoing, interdisciplinary project that is collecting, recording and archiving the oral histories of the Lost Boys/Girls of Sudan. The collection is a work-in-progress, seeking to record the oral history of as many Lost Boys/Girls as are willing, and will be used in a future book.Age: 27Region: Upper NileThis picture and bio was donated to the "Lost Boys Found" oral history project from The Arizona Lost Boys Cente
Daniel A. Ngor
No full textWhen Daniel was five years old Arab soldiers attacked his village.
“Lost Boys Found” is an ongoing, interdisciplinary project that is collecting, recording and archiving the oral histories of the Lost Boys/Girls of Sudan. The collection is a work-in-progress, seeking to record the oral history of as many Lost Boys/Girls as are willing, and will be used in a future book.Age : 23Region: Upper NileThis picture and bio was donated to the "Lost Boys Found" oral history project from The Arizona Lost Boys Cente
Personal Papers (MS 80-0002)
No full textLetter from Mary T. Steyn of The Readers Digest to Daniel W. Kempner providing some information on the author of an article he was asking about
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