Ogilvie, Brian

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Associate Professor, Department of History
Last Name
Ogilvie
First Name
Brian
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History
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Introduction
I am an intellectual and cultural historian of Europe, with special interests in the history of science, scholarship, and religion from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment. I am currently Associate Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. From 2009 throught 2012 I am directing the university's Oxford Summer Seminar. Starting in 2010 I am also co-director of the Digital Humanities Initiative in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. I have previously served as Graduate Program Director in History.
I am engaged in several research projects in cultural history and the history of science. I teach Renaissance and early modern European history, history of science, and history of religion. You can also see my profile for the history department and my curriculum vitae (PDF file).
My book The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe was published on June 1, 2006, by the University of Chicago Press. It has been favorably reviewed in Nature (PDF file), TLS, New Scientist, and a dozen academic journals. It received honorable mention (2nd place) in the History of Science category in the Association of American Publishers’ 2006 Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division Awards for Excellence (see the AAP's press release). A paperback edition was released in March 2008.
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    Publishing Your Dissertations: Open Access / Embargo / Other Options? What’s In Your Best Interest? A Panel Discussion
    (2013-10-22) Ogilvie, Brian; Quilter, Laura; Wilcox, Bruce; Freedman, Kate
    Heated discussion erupted over the American Historical Association statement urging universities to allow PhD recipients to embargo their electronic dissertation for up to six years while they pursue a book contract. Harvard University Press responded with a blog post that made a convincing case that immediate open access could be advantageous. Some institutions have recently changed their open access and embargo policies. This panel will provide faculty, librarian, University Press, and graduate student views on this timely topic followed by Q&A. Light refreshments will be served.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Exemplarity and the use of antiquity in Erasmus
    (2001) Ogilvie, Brian W.
    This paper explores Erasmus’s creative response to the tension between his idealization of antiquity and his Christian commitments. Because he did not distinguish ethical judgments from taste, Erasmus contradicted himself on the value of antiquity and hedged it about with many restrictions.
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    The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe
    (2006) Ogilvie, Brian
    Out of the diverse traditions of medical humanism, classical philology, and natural philosophy, Renaissance naturalists created a new science devoted to discovering and describing plants and animals. Drawing on published natural histories, manuscript correspondence, garden plans, travelogues, watercolors, and drawings, The Science of Describing reconstructs the evolution of this discipline of description through four generations of naturalists. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, naturalists focused on understanding ancient and medieval descriptions of the natural world, but by the mid-sixteenth century naturalists turned toward distinguishing and cataloguing new plant and animal species. To do so, they developed new techniques of observing and recording, created botanical gardens and herbaria, and exchanged correspondence and specimens within an international community. By the early seventeenth century, naturalists began the daunting task of sorting through the wealth of information they had accumulated, putting a new emphasis on taxonomy and classification. Illustrated with woodcuts, engravings, and photographs, The Science of Describing is the first broad interpretation of Renaissance natural history in more than a generation and will appeal widely to an interdisciplinary audience. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures Preface and Acknowledgments Conventions 1. Introduction 2. The World of Renaissance Natural History 3. The Humanist Invention of Natural History 4. A Science of Describing 5. Common Sense, Classification, and the Catalogue of Nature 6. Conclusion: What Was "Renaissance Natural History"? Notes Bibliography Index [Source: Publisher's catalogue copy]
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Collection, conviction, and contemplation: or, Picturing coins in early modern books, ca. 1550-1700
    (2003) Ogilvie, Brian W.
    This paper explores the uses of published illustrations of coins in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century antiquarian works, relating them to the shift in the affective value of classical antiquity from the late Renaissance to the early Enlightenment.