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The Astrolabe

An ancient instrument for solving problems of location and distance, as well as time

Astrolábon órganon is the word used in Ptolemaeus Syntaxis 5.1 to describe a form of armillary sphere consisting of both fixed and rotating rings for determining the ecliptic co-ordinates of stars. Also called astrolabe were two-dimensional representations of the celestial sphere: over fixed disks with a representation of the horizon of the earth (in each case for a specific geographic latitude) and its parallels up to the zenith lies a rotating representation of the heavens (called ‘spider’ or ‘net’) with zodiac and indicators for some of the brightest stars. On the back is an indicator (‘alidade’) with visor plates for calculating the height of the stars. The astrolabe allows its user to determine the hours of day and night, the positions of stars, and the height and depth of objects on earth (mountains, buildings, wells). The oldest extant descriptions of the flat, planispheric astrolabe come from Iohannes Philoponus, 6th century AD, and (in Syrian) from Severus Sebokht, c. 660 AD. Indirect references may date back as early as Theon (4th cent.). Between the 8th and the 9th centuries the Arabs appropriated the knowledge of the astrolabe. At the end of the 10th century and again in the 12th century, they passed it on to Western Europe, where astrolabes were constructed up until the 17th cent. Today, one Byzantine astrolabe (from 1062) is extant, as are some 750 Arabic-Islamic astrolabes and approximately the same number of European astrolabes.

This information is abstracted from Brill's New Pauly, the English edition of the authoritative Der Neue Pauly, Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. The encyclopaedic coverage and high academic standard of the work, the interdisciplinary and contemporary approach and clear and accessible presentation have made the New Pauly the unrivalled modern reference work for the ancient world. For more information see www.brillsnewpauly.com or visit our website catalog: www.brill.nl/bnp
Brill’s New Pauly and the complete original Der Neue Pauly, the recognized standard reference works for students and scholars of the ancient world are also available online. This dual-language edition offers basic and advanced search facilities and is fully browsable. New English translations are added as they become available. See www.paulyonline.brill.nl for more information and a demo version.

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Featured Titles

The Beauty of Silence

Nō and Nature Prints by Tsukioka Kōgyo (1869-1927)

Robert Schaap & J. Thomas Rimer

The first monograph in English on the print artist Tsukioka Kogyo (1869-1927), this publication covers the artist's life and work, in particular the designs related to the No theatre in general and No theatre in the Meiji period.

Crows, Cranes & Camellias
The Natural World of Ohara Koson 1877-1945

The work of print artist Ohara Koson (1877-1945) mainly consists of prints of birds and flowers, characterised by their peaceful charm. This book about Koson is the first Western publication of his oeuvre of prints and paintings. It provides all known information on the artist's life and work, his teachers and publishers, facsimiles of his signatures and seals and illustrations of an estimated seventy-five percent of his total print output, now kept in the splendid collection of Japanese prints in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
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The Shamisen
Tradition and Diversity

The shamisen is a traditional Japanese musical instrument. It was introduced to Japan in the mid-sixteenth century via China and the Ryûkyû Islands, and was quickly established as a culturally significant musical instrument in its new context. The instrument – a three-string lute – developed numerous styles of performance and is found as a solo and ensemble instrument in diverse social and cultural contexts.
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Hotei's sample pages flip-through To install Adobe Reader, please click here Japanese Visual Culture (New Series 2010)

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Publisher: Inge Klompmakers (Japanese, Korean Studies, and Hotei)

Marketing Manager: Dagmar Vermeer

Blog, News and Press

Brill congratulates the Sainsbury Institute on its tenth anniversary. Brill has cooperated with the institute on a number of interesting publications, in the past decade, including the inaugural publication Births and Rebirths in Japanese Art, as well as Reflecting Truth and Reading Surimono. The next joint publication will be John Rosenfield’s magnum opus Portraits of Chōgen

New Journal on East Asian Publishing

With pleasure, Brill announces the 2011 launch of East Asian Publishing and Society, a brand-new journal dedicated to the study of the publishing of texts and images in East Asia, from the earliest times up to the present. The journal will provide a platform for multi-disciplinary research by scholars addressing publishing practices in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Click here for more information

New Series: Japanese Visual Culture

Japanese Visual Culture is a new academic series devoted to Japan’s visual culture: art, decorative arts, performing arts, architecture, cinema, manga and anime, and other manifestations of visual and material culture of all eras. Produced in an attractive format and richly-illustrated, this series will present both object-focused studies, and studies on the history and methodology of art history and art sociology in the Japanese context.

The Japanese Visual Culture series recognizes the crucial need for continued research on individual Japanese artists, or previously-neglected categories of art, to build the foundation for further development of the field. It will also actively seek interdisciplinary or theoretical approaches to archaeology, religion, literature, and the social sciences. Though all volumes will be published in English, the series will encourage submission by scholars based in Europe.

Download the flyer here

Reviews

Reading Surimono.The Interplay of Text and Image in Japanese Prints

with a catalogue of the Marino Lusy Collection, Edited by John T. Carpenter. ISBN 9789004168411

[..]The old adage, “never judge a book by its cover,” notwithstanding, some books do convey a strong sense of what they are about before they are opened, and Reading Surimono is one of them. The arresting image of a kimono-clad woman seemingly looking up at the book’s title on the jacket cover gives a foretaste of the confident, meticulous sense of design evident in every detail of the publication. It is also an ambitious work. The publishers describe it on the jacket cover as a “groundbreaking scholarly publication,” and it is. read more

Quotes from review of Reading Surimono by Joshua Mostow in Impressions, no. 31, 2010, pp. 180-184

“If you actually want to learn how to read surimono (deluxe, privately printed woodblock print) – their images, their texts and contents – this is the book for you. (…) Carpenter and his collaborators tell the reader just about everything one could possibly wish to know (…) The scholarship required for the kind of treatment presented in the catalogue is staggering. (…) All in all, this is a magisterial production. As suggested by the picture on the dustjacket , as though allowing the reader to peer through a moon window and gaze on the young woman at her ease, this book provides an exceptional glimpse into the art, culture, politics and everyday life of early nineteenth century Japan. One can imagine no more charming tutorial.”

A Brush With Animals.Japanese Paintings 1700-1950
Robert Schaap, with essays by Willem van Gulik, Henk Herwig, Arendie Herwig-Kempers, Daniel McKee, Andrew Thompson
ISBN 9789070216078

The Book is in essence a loving probe of the subject of Japanese animal imagery using Society collections; individual and institutional members contributed all of the works exhibited and many of those used to illustrate the text. Most of the artists featured work in the tradition known as Shijo (or Maruyama-Shijo). Others have adopted elements of the Shijo style - a poetic, naturalistic mode of painting that originated in Japan’s Edo period (1615-1868). read more

The Koto: a traditional instrument in contemporary Japan: Review (part 1) and (part 2) from the Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society

Conferences and Events

Brill will attend the annual conference of the British Association of Japanese Studies (BAJS) at SOAS in London on 9 and 10 September 2010. For more information or to schedule an appointment, please contact Inge Klompmakers.

December 27-30 American Philosophical Association

For more conferences and events, please click here

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