CFP: Scientiae 2013: Disciplines of Knowing in the Early Modern World

This is the second annual conference on the emergent knowledge practices of the early-modern period (ca. 1450-1750). The premise of this conference is that knowledge during the period of the Scientific Revolution was inherently interdisciplinary, involving complex mixtures of fields and objects that had not yet been separated into their modern “scientific” hierarchies. As such our approach needs to be equally wide-ranging, involving Biblical exegesis, art theory, logic, and literary humanism; as well as natural philosophy, alchemy, occult practices, and trade knowledge. Scientiae is for scholars working in any area of early-modern intellectual culture, with the emergence of modern natural science serving as a general point of reference. The conference offers a forum both for the sharing of research and the sparking of new investigations, and is open to scholars of all levels.

Topics and questions may include, but are by no means limited to:

• Theological origins and implications of the new science
• Nature and scripture: which interprets which?
• What do images contribute to our understanding of early modern knowledge?
• Genealogies of “reason”, “utility”, and/or “knowledge”
• Humanism and the scientific revolution
• Paracelsianism, Neoplatonism, alchemy: where are we now?
• What were the relations between the new science and magic and demonology?
• Health and medicine: separable economies?
• Morality and the natural world: an on-going relationship?
• Period conceptions and practices of intellectual property
• Poetics and science: habits of thought?
• Renaissance philosophy and the development of a “new” cosmology and anthropology.
• Information and knowledge: a clear divide?
• Science and Medicine:  Global Knowledges?
• Early-modern literature and the new knowledge: friends, or foes?
• Advances or reversals of period logic/dialectic

Abstracts proposing individual papers of 25 minutes should be between 250 and 350 words in length. For panel sessions of one hour and 45 minutes, a list of speakers (with affiliations) and 500-word abstract is required. Roundtable discussions or other formats are acceptable.

The deadline for abstracts is the 20th October 2012.

All submissions should be made at http://go.warwick.ac.uk/scientiae/submit. If you have any questions please contact the conference convenor David Beck: [email protected]