A Material History of Medieval and Early Modern Ciphers: Cryptography and the History of Literacy

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Katherine Ellison (Illinois State University, USA) Susan Kim

A Material History of Medieval and Early Modern Ciphers

Cryptography and the History of Literacy

Katherine Ellison (Illinois State University, USA), Susan Kim

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English

Routledge
30 September 2020

Series: Material Readings in Early Modern Culture

The first cultural history of early modern cryptography, this collection brings together scholars in history, literature, music, the arts, mathematics, and computer science who study ciphering and deciphering from new materialist, media studies, cognitive studies, disability studies, and other theoretical perspectives. Essays analyze the material forms of ciphering as windows into the cultures of orality, manuscript, print, and publishing, revealing that early modern ciphering, and the complex history that preceded it in the medieval period, not only influenced political and military history but also played a central role in the emergence of the capitalist media state in the West, in religious reformation, and in the scientific revolution. Ciphered communication, whether in etched stone and bone, in musical notae, runic symbols, polyalphabetic substitution, algebraic equations, graphic typographies, or literary metaphors, took place in contested social spaces and offered a means of expression during times of political, economic, and personal upheaval. Ciphering shaped the early history of linguistics as a discipline, and it bridged theological and scientific rhetoric before and during the Reformation. Ciphering was an occult art, a mathematic language, and an aesthetic that influenced music, sculpture, painting, drama, poetry, and the early novel. This collection addresses gaps in cryptographic history, but more significantly, through cultural analyses of the rhetorical situations of ciphering and actual solved and unsolved medieval and early modern ciphers, it traces the influences of cryptographic writing and reading on literacy broadly defined as well as the cultures that generate, resist, and require that literacy. This volume offers a significant contribution to the history of the book, highlighting the broader cultural significance of textual materialities.

Edited by: Katherine Ellison (Illinois State University USA), Susan Kim
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 426g
ISBN: 9780367667528
ISBN 10: 0367667525
Series: Material Readings in Early Modern Culture
Pages: 298
Publication Date: 30 September 2020
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Katherine Ellison is Professor of English at Illinois State University, USA. Susan Kim is Professor in the Department of English at Illinois State University, USA.