Abstract

Unfortunately, this lecture has been cancelled due to Covid-19 – we hope to reschedule in the future, so check our website for more details.

gloknos Annual Lecture Series – Sonja Brentjes (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science)

This lecture has been rescheduled from 14 June 2019, when it was cancelled due to unforeseen weather problems.

Abstract: In my talk I wish to make a case for strengthening empirical studies of knowledge available across cultures without anchoring it in any specific theoretical approach. Over the years, I have come across an increasing number of theory-guided studies of knowledge transfer across the Old World or between the Old and New World that produced results contradicting empirically derived knowledge about such processes. As one step to regain a better empirical grounding of our theoretical debates and to overcome dichotomic evaluations of cross-cultural movements of knowledge, we are currently undertaking an interdisciplinary long-durée project for most parts of the Old World about visual representations of the heavens and their relations to materials, narratives, social status, and cultural meaning. I will present this project and some of its themes, objects, and methods. In the second part of my talk I will discuss my earlier work on a number of maps and how those empirical studies changed my outlook on relations between various societies in Europe and in the Islamicate world.

gloknos is initially funded for 5 years by the European Research Council through a Consolidator Grant awarded to Dr.Inanna Hamati-Ataya for her project ARTEFACT (2017-2022) ERC grant no. 724451.