Jessica Otis
George Mason University, History and Art History, Faculty Member
- Carnegie Mellon University, English, Post-DocCarnegie Mellon University, University Libraries, Faculty Member, and 4 moreadd
- I do not maintain a full/current CV here - for a more recent and accurate summary of my current scholarly activities,... moreI do not maintain a full/current CV here - for a more recent and accurate summary of my current scholarly activities, see www.jessicaotis.com
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5519-8331edit
The ways English men and women apprehended numbers underwent a transformation during the last half of the sixteenth century and first decades of the seventeenth century. This dissertation analyzes the changes in how people encountered,... more
The ways English men and women apprehended numbers underwent a transformation during the last half of the sixteenth century and first decades of the seventeenth century. This dissertation analyzes the changes in how people encountered, perceived, and subsequently employed numbers in their day-to-day lives. It also argues that a quantitative worldview coexisted with Christianity and was supported by the belief that God used numbers to create the world.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, most English men and women expressed numerical concepts through a combination of performative and object-based symbolic systems, such as tally sticks and counting boards. Those who used written systems relied primarily on number words and Roman numerals. During the late sixteenth century, the advent of vernacular arithmetic textbooks combined with rising literacy rates to encourage the adoption of a single symbolic system: Arabic numerals. Unlike other number systems, Arabic numerals combined two different functions: permanent recording and calculation. Over the course of the seventeenth century, Arabic numerals became the dominant form of English numeracy, subordinating arithmetic to the previously separate skill of writing.
During the same period, English men and women increasingly used numbers to interpret the world around them. Mathematical texts and teachers stressed the utility of numbers, often bolstering their claims by citing a Biblical verse describing God's creation of the world in number, weight, and measure. Seventeenth-century almanacs reveal popular uncertainty about a chronologically fractured world and people's use of numbers to situate their lives with respect to both the past and present. At the same time, anxieties over the unknowable future led people to employ numbers in an increasingly probabilistic fashion to predict chance events and future risks. Fears of the plague, in particular, led to the collection of demographic data that formed the basis of political arithmetic in which the population itself became subject to numerical analysis.
By examining a diverse array of sources, this dissertation establishes the social pervasiveness of numbers and their power to shape modes of thought in early modern England. It also demonstrates the historiographical importance of numeracy by evaluating patterns of symbolic change within the context of changing social and educational practices, and by placing numbers in conversation with broader developments in English intellectual, political, and cultural histories.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, most English men and women expressed numerical concepts through a combination of performative and object-based symbolic systems, such as tally sticks and counting boards. Those who used written systems relied primarily on number words and Roman numerals. During the late sixteenth century, the advent of vernacular arithmetic textbooks combined with rising literacy rates to encourage the adoption of a single symbolic system: Arabic numerals. Unlike other number systems, Arabic numerals combined two different functions: permanent recording and calculation. Over the course of the seventeenth century, Arabic numerals became the dominant form of English numeracy, subordinating arithmetic to the previously separate skill of writing.
During the same period, English men and women increasingly used numbers to interpret the world around them. Mathematical texts and teachers stressed the utility of numbers, often bolstering their claims by citing a Biblical verse describing God's creation of the world in number, weight, and measure. Seventeenth-century almanacs reveal popular uncertainty about a chronologically fractured world and people's use of numbers to situate their lives with respect to both the past and present. At the same time, anxieties over the unknowable future led people to employ numbers in an increasingly probabilistic fashion to predict chance events and future risks. Fears of the plague, in particular, led to the collection of demographic data that formed the basis of political arithmetic in which the population itself became subject to numerical analysis.
By examining a diverse array of sources, this dissertation establishes the social pervasiveness of numbers and their power to shape modes of thought in early modern England. It also demonstrates the historiographical importance of numeracy by evaluating patterns of symbolic change within the context of changing social and educational practices, and by placing numbers in conversation with broader developments in English intellectual, political, and cultural histories.
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During the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, English men and women replaced their existing oral and object-based arithmetical practices with literate practices based on Arabic numerals. While the adoption of Arabic numerals was... more
During the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, English men and women replaced their existing oral and object-based arithmetical practices with literate practices based on Arabic numerals. While the adoption of Arabic numerals was incentivized by continental commercial developments, this article argues that England's increasing literacy rates and the development of vernacular arithmetic textbooks enabled changing arithmetical practices. By exploring the qualities of printed books, analyzing marginalia in arithmetic textbooks, and examining changing educational advertisements and curricula over time, we can demonstrate the importance of literacy and literature to early modern arithmetical education.
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This lesson introduces network metrics and how to draw conclusions from them when working with humanities data. Readers learn how to use the NetworkX Python package to produce and work with these network statistics.
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An innovative volume of fifteen interdisciplinary essays at the nexus of material culture, performance studies, and game theory, Playthings in Early Modernity emphasizes the rules of the game(s) as well as the breaking of those rules.... more
An innovative volume of fifteen interdisciplinary essays at the nexus of material culture, performance studies, and game theory, Playthings in Early Modernity emphasizes the rules of the game(s) as well as the breaking of those rules. Thus, the titular "plaything" is understood as both an object and a person, and play, in the early modern world, is treated not merely as a pastime, a leisurely pursuit, but as a pivotal part of daily life, a strategic psychosocial endeavor.
The collection is the inaugural volume in the book series Ludic Cultures, 1100-1700. More information about the series can be found at https://mip-archumanitiespress.org/series/mip/ludic-cultures/.
The collection is the inaugural volume in the book series Ludic Cultures, 1100-1700. More information about the series can be found at https://mip-archumanitiespress.org/series/mip/ludic-cultures/.
Research Interests: Early Modern History, Renaissance Studies, Seventeenth Century, Early Modern Europe, Early Modern Literature, and 17 moreHistory of Art, 16th Century Netherlandish Art, Early Modern Intellectual History, Renaissance literature, Italian Renaissance literature, 17th Century Netherlandish Art, 15th Century Netherlandish Art, History of Games, Early Modern Cultural History, Fifteenth and Sixteenth century culture, Early Modern Art and Visual Culture, Folklore, Anthropology, Aesthetics, Theories of Play, Games, and Humor, Popular Culture, History of Media and Technology, Narrative Theory, Informal Networks, History of games, playing cards, History of Board Games, Sixteenth Century History, Historical Games, and Art History and Visual Studies
Example of how Six Degrees of Francis Bacon can be incorporated into an undergraduate course syllabus, including Tudor, Stuart, and early modern British history courses. This document can be used and re-distributed under:... more
Example of how Six Degrees of Francis Bacon can be incorporated into an undergraduate course syllabus, including Tudor, Stuart, and early modern British history courses.
This document can be used and re-distributed under: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This document can be used and re-distributed under: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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It is an historical commonplace that the study of science underwent some sort of "revolution" during the early modern period, but recently the nature of that revolution – and indeed the term itself – has become a hot topic for debate... more
It is an historical commonplace that the study of science underwent some sort of "revolution" during the early modern period, but recently the nature of that revolution – and indeed the term itself – has become a hot topic for debate among historians. This course seeks to look beyond such "revolutionary" changes brought about by men such as Sir Isaac Newton and instead examines the forgotten practitioners of early modern science. In particular, it will look at the ways in which scientific inquiry intersected with popular culture. What did members of Parliament, merchants, craftsmen and even poor laborers know about the world around them? How interested were they in sciences such as applied mathematics, the study of the natural world and medicine? What did they find useful and how did they apply that knowledge to their daily lives? Thus this seminar seeks to recover something we shall call "popular science" and only then to examine how popular notions of science did or did not change over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The eventual goal is to obtain a broader understanding of the nature of science and scientific practices in the early modern era, particularly as seen in the English culture of science.
This document can be used and re-distributed under: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This document can be used and re-distributed under: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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A blog post about patterns I found while curating the raw Named-Entity-Recognition dataset from the Six Degrees of Francis Bacon project.
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A blog post on the appearance (or lack thereof) of women in the raw Named-Entity-Recognition dataset of the Six Degrees of Francis Bacon project
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A blog post about connectivity in the raw Named-Entity Recognition dataset from the Six Degrees of Francis Bacon project.
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A blog post about international connections in the raw Named-Entity Recognition dataset from the Six Degrees of Francis Bacon project.
A blog post about deduplicating names in the raw Named-Entity Recognition dataset of Six Degrees of Francis Bacon.
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A blog post about how Named-Entity-Recognition led to the creation of multiple entries for King James VI and I in the Six Degrees of Francis Bacon dataset, and what this disjunction reveals about the social structure of the Jacobean... more
A blog post about how Named-Entity-Recognition led to the creation of multiple entries for King James VI and I in the Six Degrees of Francis Bacon dataset, and what this disjunction reveals about the social structure of the Jacobean courts in England and Scotland.
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A blog post on unique resource identifiers and the Networks Ontology conference in Pittsburgh, November 2014.
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A blog post about data curation and the CLIR/DLF postdoctoral fellowship program.