SCIENTIA conference

SCIENTIA conference - Call for papers

Non-expert dealings with science in the ancient and pre-modern Mediterranean

The sociology of science, including explorations of its audiences and the interactions with other knowledges and actors, has been an extremely productive area in the historiography of modern science in the last decades. The research group ‘SCIENTIA-Scientific Texts and Ideas in the pre-modern Mediterranean area’ (Universitat de Barcelona) aims to bring to the fore discussions of these topics in the domain of the ancient, medieval, and pre-modern sciences, in which historiography has been traditionally centered on authors. Papers are welcome on the variegated themes related to these issues, comprising (not exhaustively):

  • demarcation of scientific and mathematical discourses by philosophical and religious scholars
  • establishment of curricula
  • circulation of specialized, scientific knowledge and works in more general milieux
  • discussion of the epistemological value of scientific disciplines and subdisciplines
  • interactions between science and literature
  • degrees of specialization/vulgarization in ancient scientific texts
  • scientific compendia
  • scientific intrusion (unqualified scientists acting as such)
  • satire and humor on scientific topics

Language: English

Place: University of Barcelona

Dates: 26-27 June 2025

Sending of abstracts: closed

 

PROVISIONAL PROGRAM

Thursday 26th June - Sala de Professors, edifici Josep Carner

Welcome [9:30-10]

Cristian Tolsa and Miquel Forcada

 

Medicine and philosophy [10h-12:30h]

Teun Tieleman (UUtrecht) - Gatecrashers: Issues of expertise and institutionalization in Graeco-Roman medicine

Giulia La Cognata (UEdinburgh) - Between struggle and distinction: the definition of Greek physicians in popular culture and medical works

- coffee break -

Robert Vinkesteijn (UUtrecht) – The limits of philosophy in Origen

Tugay Taşçı (Uİstanbul) - Eclecticism at Mediterranean shores: Influence of Aristotle and Galen in the formation of Islamic mediterranean philosophy

 

Astronomy, cosmology, and geography [12:45-1:45, lunch, 16:00-18:30]

Samantha Sink (TCDublin) - The limitations of expertise: Scientific intrusion in Eratosthenes’ Geographika

Divna Manolova (UGhent) - Cosmology, Canonicity, and Manuscript Constellations: Aratus, Dionysius Periegetes, and Cleomedes in Late Byzantine schools

 

- lunch –

 

Kaveh Niazi (StanfordOHS) - Jawāmiʿ ʿilm al- hayʾa: An introductory text for students of astronomy

Pouyan Rezvani (PALMunich) - Expert knowledge and non-expert patrons in Islamic astronomy

- coffee break –

Sebastià Giralt (UABarcelona) - The use of the vernacular in treatises on the science of the stars in the time of King Peter the Ceremonious

Inês Bénard da Costa (ULisbon) - Astronomical and geographical knowledge in the treatise of the seafaring needle by João de Lisboa

 

Friday 27th June - Sala de Graus, edifici històric

Medicine and zoology [10-12:30]

Rosachiara Monopoli (UPavia) - Medical sources in Achilles Tatius: Between medical science and literary practice

Caterina Manco (UBologna) - “You’re just a herb-chopper and quack”! Satire on medicine and physicians in the 2nd century CE

- coffee break –

Michiel Meeusen (KULeuven) - Favorinus medicus: between medicine and sophistry

Andrea Murace (URome3) - Greek zoological science at the service of hunting and fishing (Cynegetica, Ixeutica, and Halieutica)

 

Miscellanea [12:45-1:45]

Thorsten Fögen (NNUChangchun) - Animals in Aulus Gellius’ Noctes Atticae

Eleonora Falini (FloridaSU) - Menippean Encyclopedia or Satirical apology? The literary genre of the De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii by Martianus Capella

 

- lunch -

 

Natural and occult sciences [16-17:30]

Giouli Korobili (UIoannina) - Who cares about the weather? The non-expert reader of ancient meteorological works (Aristotle, Lucretius, Seneca)

Chiara Ballestrazzi (UPisa) - The science of nature: the novitas of Pliny’s Naturalis Historia

Constantin Canavas (HamburgUAC) - Interactions between science, literature, and iconography during the transmission of Arabic allegorical alchemy

 

With the financial support of: