Author: Leah Knight

Jean Feerick and Vin Nardizzi (eds), The Indistinct Human in Renaissance Literature (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 304pp. £52.00 Hb. ISBN 9780230340473 What is an indistinct human—or indistinct about the human? When did such odd questions become askable? The mere title of this collection of thirteen compact essays introduced by two careful editors provokes such inquiries, and…

James Dougal Fleming (ed), The Invention of Discovery, 1500-1700 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 228 pp. £55. ISBN 978-0-7546-6841-1. This collection aims to provoke a variety of eponymous discoveries and inventions about meanings held by the book’s keywords in the early modern world. In so doing it raises questions not only about the salience of these concepts…