Dorothy Potter

Bio: Dorothy Potter is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Genius & Context (language use). The author has an hindex of 3, co-authored 3 publications receiving 36 citations.

The Possessor and the Possessed: Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and the Idea of Musical Genius

Abstract: Revellibre-LCpaux. The revisionist case in favor of the point on freedom and political democracy argued by such scholars as Isser Woloch (1970). Martyn Lyons (1975), Denis Woronoff (English trans. 1986), and James Livesey (2001) is not overturned in my mind hy Martin’s argument. There can be no dispute whatsoever, on the other hand, that Napoleon, a thoroughgoing autocrat and the first modem dictator, categorically rejected any and all notions of human freedom, real or potential, and that is clearly seen in Martin’s analysis of the Napoleonic Civil Code, which, in my mind, is the most useful and valuable part of thc book. In conclusion, this is definitely not a book for a neophyte, but rather for the serious and advanced student who is widely and deeply read in the literature of the Enlightenment. the revolution, and Napoleon. Even though I disagrce with some of Martin’s points and interpretations. I strongly recommend his book for specialists and advanced scholars of the period.

England's Troubles: Seventeenth-Century English Political Instability in European Context

Abstract: (2001). England's Troubles: Seventeenth-Century English Political Instability in European Context. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 114-114.

The Apotheosis of Josquin des Prez and Other Mythologies of Musical Genius

Abstract: Within the theoretical framework of Roland Barthes9s writings on myth and ideology, this essay seeks to expose the historical legitimation project through which the mythmaking, universalizing rhetoric of musical genius that has long surrounded the figure of Ludwig van Beethoven came to infiltrate scholarship on Josquin des Prez, culminating in his late twentieth-century apotheosis. Contextualizing the composer9s reception history with respect to the debates between Joseph Kerman and Edward Lowinsky in 1965 and especially the 1971 Josquin Festival-Conference, the author suggests that the ideological refashioning of Josquin in the image of Beethoven has simultaneously shaped and derailed the intellectual trajectory of early music scholarship in the past thirty years. By privileging a discourse of musical genius in the service of which, among other concerns, the canon of works attributed to the composer is being decimated beyond historical recognition, the richness and complexity of the musical culture of which he was a vital part risks being overshadowed and obfuscated by the disproportionate amount of attention invested in his singular accomplishments. The essay advocates a resolute historicization of sixteenth-century discourses of creative endowment, a critical reassessment of the role of authentication scholarship in Josquin studies, and a renewed sensitivity to the imbrication of mythologies of musical genius in music historiographies of both the past and the present.

Governing the free sea: The Dutch West India Company and commercial politics, 1618-1645

Abstract: iii

καινοτομία: An Old Word for a New World, or the De-Contestation of a Political and Contested Concept

Abstract: Over the last 60 years, innovation has become the emblem of the modern society, a panacea for resolving many problems and a catchword. The quest for innovation is so strong that some who made no use of the concept until recently have discovered its “political” value and have begun using it. Biologists now speak about animal innovation (Reader & Laland, 2003). Others go so far as to suggest that drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall, used to treat psychiatric and neurological conditions, should be prescribed to the healthy as a “cognitive enhancement technology” to improve the innovative abilities of our species (Greely et al., 2008). Still others began talking of social innovation (Mulgan, 2007)—a not-so-new concept, however, because it existed in the early 19th century.