From the category archives:

Monsters and Marvels

Devouring Dead

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Harry Potter’s World: A Traveling Exhibit

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By Elizabeth Bland
In 1997, British author J. K. Rowling introduced the world to Harry Potter and a literary phenomenon was born. Although a fantasy story, the magic in the Harry Potter books is partially based on Renaissance traditions that played an important role in the development of Western science, including alchemy, astrology, and natural philosophy. [...]

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Do Mandrakes Really Scream?

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Do Mandrakes Really Scream? This was a question that the National Library of Medicine posed in their magnificent “Magic and Medicine in Harry Potter” exhibit awhile back. The exhibition takes a close look at the facts, fictions, and legends in references to the healing arts in Harry Potter. Very nicely done.
By the way, [...]

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Kids, Stop Dissecting the Dog!

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By Holly Tucker
Kids, I’ve told you a million times…Quit Dissecting the Dog!
I came across this image quite by accident today in the extraordinary Wellcome Library image collection. I’ve been working on some descriptions of early-modern dissections–and was having a hard time putting into words the tools that anatomists used in their work: their size, shape, [...]

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To the Moon!

by Matthew Goodman

In the early decades of the nineteenth century, most astronomers believed that intelligent life existed throughout the universe. The basis for this notion was less scientific than theological in nature: that God would not have created distant worlds without also placing intelligent beings there to appreciate them.

Given the widespread belief [...]

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Sea Monsters and Mermen

Is seeing believing? Or does believing mean seeing only what you want to?
A post over at Curious Expeditions on the fascinating story of the Feejee Mermaid, a merman with a long history, made me think about some earlier beasts of the sea. Ambroise Pare’s 16th- century Monsters and Prodigies includes a number of [...]

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Pig-Faced Lady of Manchester Square

“Teratology” is the big word in my class this week. We’re focused on early-modern monsters. The term “monsters” is used very loosely to include anomalous flora, fauna, humans, and other worldly beasts. The ones that fascinate me most are the many creatures–part human, part other–that populate travel writings from Marco Polo to [...]

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