The Research Seminar of the Early Modern Lab is a weekly hybrid meeting of researchers and students, dedicated to discussing work-in-progress and research projects. It aims to be both inter and cross-disciplinary, bringing together scholars from different fields: history of philosophy, history of science, philosophy of science, classics, digital humanities, AI and computer science. To foster the dialogue, we propose a general research theme Knowledge, representation and the language(s) of science.
Early modern period is one of great transformations, a melting pot of doctrines and ideas, a time of bold experimenting with new objects, methods, and forms of representation in the production of knowledge. We are particularly interested to follow such mutations in what pertains to aspects of language (broadly understood): concept formation, new forms of representation, re-signifying and translation, dreams of new, artificial languages. We are also interested in the changes and reconfiguration of traditional forms of writing and argumentation, and in pre-modern experiments with forms of recording experience. But we want to also address these questions from a wider perspective, asking questions about how and why such changes happen, more generally. We hope to gain a comparative perspective and a better insight by looking, sometimes, at other historical periods, and by looking at our present time, when new language(s) and new forms of representation have transformed so many sciences.
Meanwhile, papers presented in the seminar do not have to be restricted to these topics. If you are interested in joining us or if you would like to give a paper in our seminar, send an email to earlymodern@utn.de.
Key Facts
| Time | Wednesdays 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. |
| Format | Hybrid |
| Location | Department Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Ulmenstraße 52i, Meetingroom 32 |
| Zoom | https://utn-de.zoom.us/j/63489126627?pwd=yDamnnbZTu0lfNauqurO3OEalHIKO1.1 Meeting-ID: 634 8912 6627 Kenncode: 6520524599 |
| Organization | Prof. Dr. Dana Jalobeanu |
Program
Summer Semester 2025
May 28, Rodolfo Garau (University of Hamburg), speaker on-site (The talk will begin exceptionally at 6 p.m.!)
How Do Sciences End? The Disappearance of Astrology and the Limits of Internalism and Externalism
June 4, Gideon Manning (Claremont Graduate College), speaker online
Visualizing Nature with Text and Image: Science’s Grammar of Anatomical Illustration
June 18, Daniel Garber (Princeton University), speaker online
Reading the Rocks: Steno vs. Descartes on the Anatomy of the Earth
June 25, Petr Pavlas (Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague), speaker on-site
Circulus victoriosus. Early Modern Cultural Imagery and the Rise of the Encyclopaedia
July 9
TBA
Winter Semester 2025/26
September 5, Peter Anstey (Catholic University of Australia), speaker on-site (Mark it is a Friday!)
TBA
October 1, Silvia Manzo (University La Plata, Argentina), speaker on-site
“Freedom from impediments in politics and natural philosophy. Thomas Hobbes, Francis Bacon, and the Late Scholastic Legacy” (in person)
October 15
TBA
October 22, Martin Lenz (Hagen) (in person)
Christian Thomassius on Language and Thought
October 29, Alan Stewart (Columbia), speaker on-site
TBC
November 12, Stephan Schmidt (Hamburg), speaker on-site
“Spinoza and the Possibility of Finite Modes”
November 19
TBA
November 26, Martin Korenjak (Innsbruck), speaker on-site
„More geometrico. Euclid’s Elements as a structural model“
December 10
TBA