Papers by Ran Segev
History and Anthropology , 2023
One of the striking elements in proto-ethnographic literature is the attention given by colonial ... more One of the striking elements in proto-ethnographic literature is the attention given by colonial writers to child-rearing practices around the world. This article revisits the early modern “discovery of childhood” by analyzing case studies in which religious writers documented the experience of growing up in non-European societies. Taking examples from Spanish America and North Africa, I argue that missionaries of various confessions raised awareness about the diversity of childhood experiences and lifestyles, and in so doing, exposed the multiple ways by which children were expected to integrate into their societies as they grew. I further claim that documenting the different ways of nurturing children opened new paths to conceptualize childhood and education, and helped to expose the socially constructed nature of human values and practices.
The Journal of Religion, Oct 1, 2022
Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel was one of leading voices in the seventeenth-century Jewish world. Livi... more Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel was one of leading voices in the seventeenth-century Jewish world. Living in Amsterdam, he educated and instructed Iberian exiles and their descendants as they returned to Judaism. Focusing on Menasseh’s exhaustive study of scripture, Conciliador, this article analyzes Menasseh’s religious ideas in the context of the spiritual challenges of Amsterdam’s “Portuguese Nation.” I argue that Menasseh generated culturally attuned arguments that stressed the authority of Mosaic law to overwhelmingly individualistic and religiously doubtful former conversos who were long separated from the practice of Rabbinic Judaism. From this vantage point, Menasseh reinterpreted Jewish exile in the context of world history and defended the importance of God’s precepts by discussing longevity and the duration of life. Responding to Christian polemics, he offered positive meaning to his community’s experience of dislocation by adjusting the terms of God’s election to his present-day diasporic condition. Menasseh additionally used natural knowledge, that is, Hippocratic-Galenic medicine and astrology, to persuade former conversos of the practical advantages of Torah. He thus presented a community of Sephardic exiles with what I call in this article a diasporic covenant according to which the practice of Mosaic law made Jews virtuous individuals and prolonged their life, and he stressed that their acceptance among the nations guaranteed good fortune to the tolerant state where they had settled.
Between Encyclopedia and Chorography: Defining the Agency of “Cultural Encyclopedias” from a Transcultural Perspective, 2022
Juan de Cárdenas’s Problemas was a pioneering attempt to explain the findings in America using Eu... more Juan de Cárdenas’s Problemas was a pioneering attempt to explain the findings in America using European academic theory. This chapter places Cárdenas’s regional compilation in the context of Spain’s empirical vision, suggesting that the question-and-answer model responded to the Crown’s information-gathering initiatives. The chapter also examines Cárdenas’s approach to scientific observation, showing how his work reflects a fusion of pre-modern and modern epistemologies. Focusing on the author’s geological thinking and his analysis of local plants, it claims that while Cárdenas’s explanatory framework reveals his adherence to European models, he nonetheless emphasized the advantage of a colonial perspective. His efforts to impose order and intelligibility on American nature mirrored existing centralizing tendencies of Imperial Spain and the Church that equally desired to constrain disorder in the colonial realm.
Perspectives on Science , 2022
In his writings, Francis Bacon emphasized the interrelatedness between the migration of people an... more In his writings, Francis Bacon emphasized the interrelatedness between the migration of people and knowledge, arguing that Europeans of his time had surpassed the greatest civilizations because of their ability to traverse the world freely. Concentrating on Spanish observers who investigated New Spain’s flora, this article bridges theory and practice by examining the Iberian roots of Bacon’s views. The article examines scientific approaches for acquiring bioknowledge by Iberians who specialized in European medicine, including Francisco Hernández, Juan de Cárdenas and Francisco Ximénez. While the article recognizes the contribution of travellers and expatriates to Spain’s bioprospecting project, it also points to the ways in which the limitations of the transfer of botanical information was acknowledged, and discusses its meaning. By presenting the complexities in the communication of knowledge, I argue, naturalists in the colonies could highlight their unique vantage point in relation to “armchair” specialists in the metropole.
Journal of Early Modern History, 2021
Outside the field of animal studies, Humphrey Primatt’s Duty of Mercy has received little attenti... more Outside the field of animal studies, Humphrey Primatt’s Duty of Mercy has received little attention. This article offers a new perspective on his work by contextualizing Primatt’s ecological worldview within Enlightenment debates about the “essence of mankind.” I argue that Primatt’s call to extend “rights” to all creatures was a deliberate attempt to redraw the contested borders between humans and animals by privileging morality over other characteristics of humanity. The article shows how Primatt, an Anglican vicar, incorporated contemporary ideologies and knowledge into Christian teachings in order to formulate his anthropocentric argument and transform the nature of human-animal interactions.
the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 2019
From an early stage, the economic exploitation of free African descendants preoccupied Spanish of... more From an early stage, the economic exploitation of free African descendants preoccupied Spanish officials in the American colonies. Miscegenation complicated the organization of the colonial workforce by rendering any intention to generate a labor system based on a priori divisions between ethnic groups impossible. By analyzing labor proposals regarding African descendants in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Mexico—which had one of the largest populations of free Blacks in the Americas—this article investigates how Spaniards responded to the emergence of new types of peoples who were the unintended consequence of early European colonialism. I further claim that the attempt to implement labor policies toward colonial populations deemed "undesirable" should be understood within the desire of the early modern state to expand its jurisdiction through the development of new conceptualizations of population and wealth.
Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, 2018
In 1650 Menashe ben Israel stirred excitement by endorsing the idea that descendants of the lost ... more In 1650 Menashe ben Israel stirred excitement by endorsing the idea that descendants of the lost tribes of Israel secretly dwelled in America. Situating Menashe's work within the challenges of acculturated Iberian Jews in Amsterdam, this article argues that his portrayal of the lost tribes is an attempt to mirror the collective experience of the "Hebrew nation." In the context of loss and rebuilding, Menashe suggests a hermeneutic equation between the lost tribes and the Sephardic ex-conversos that bolstered his community's self-perception and served as a declaration of the resilience of Judaism. The Hispanic experience informed Menashe's text; the author overtly appropriated images, tropes and narratives of the culture of imperial Spain. The Israelite tribes, fashioned as warlike and brave people in the image of the conquistadores, became Jews who adamantly refused to surrender their religious traditions and identities.
This chapter explores the relationship between geography and religious sensibilities in the early... more This chapter explores the relationship between geography and religious sensibilities in the early modern Spanish world by exposing how spatial evidence served to promote confessional ideologies and visions. Through the example of the seventeenth-century Carmelite missionary Antonio Vásquez de Espinosa who worked in America, I examine how geography was employed to propagate Catholic outlooks and to sacralize overseas, colonial space. My analysis of his work demonstrates how Espinosa attempted to assimilate newly observed geographical data into the worldview of the Church and the Carmelite Order—a religious order that became a model for the Catholic redefinition of piety and faith.
Books by Ran Segev
Sacred Habitat: Nature and Catholicism in the Early Modern Spanish Atlantic, 2023
Known as a time of revolutions in science, the early modern era in Europe was characterized by th... more Known as a time of revolutions in science, the early modern era in Europe was characterized by the emergence of new disciplines and ways of thinking. Taking this conceit a step further, Sacred Habitat shows how Spanish friars and missionaries used new scholarly approaches, methods, and empirical data from their studies of ecology to promote Catholic goals and incorporate American nature into centuries-old church traditions. Coming in August 2023.
Conference Presentations by Ran Segev
Book Reviews by Ran Segev
The Historian Volume 84, 2023
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Papers by Ran Segev
Books by Ran Segev
Conference Presentations by Ran Segev
Book Reviews by Ran Segev