News and events
The project activities comprise:
- Workshops & Symposia in Venice with external guests;
- Colloquia in Venice with presentations and papers by group members.
 | 2022, Nov 7th Seminar series "Crisis and Change in Early Modernity: Knowledge, Practice, Governance" - The Life and circumstances of Jacques du Roure (1621-1683?), or: How to make a living from teaching Cartesian philosophy? Sophie Roux (École Normale Supérieure) | 542 K |
| 2022, Nov 3rd Seminar series "Crisis and Change in Early Modernity: Knowledge, Practice, Governance" - Mechanism and chemistry in early modern Italy. Antonio Clericuzio (Università Roma 3) | 1.00 M |
| 2022, Oct 12th-14th Scientific Cosmopolitanism in the University Culture of Early Modern Padua | 2.23 M |
International Society for Intellectual History Conference Venice 2022, September 12-15, 2022
The ERC EarlyModernCosmology GA n. 725883, in partnership with the International Society for Intellectual History Conference (ISIH), and in cooperation with the team of the ERC Water-Cultures GA 833834, hosts the International Society for Intellectual History Conference 2022 in Venice
Histories of Knowledge: Political, Historical and Cultural Epistemologies in Intellectual History.
September 12-15, 2022
In recent years, the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, the growth of global inequalities, and the emergenceof global conspiracy theories have brought to the fore the political dimensions of knowledge by eliciting debates on issues such as post-truth, the crisis of expertise, and the control of data and information.Drawing inspiration from the pressing issues of today’s world, ISIH2022 will use the lens of intellectual history to explore the mutual influence of ideas stemming from the political and cultural realms, ranging from philosophy to the sciences, the arts, and literature.We also invite material and social inquiries into the political and cultural conditions that inform knowledge construction at three different levels: its roots, its validation processes, and its implications. This type of approach, which investigates the politically-informed, ever-changing historical conditions of knowledge, is what we refer to as ‘political epistemology’.
Collectively, we aim to foster enquiry into the interplay of the political and the intellectual, including (but not limited to) the topics listed below, from Western as well as global perspectives:
● Political legitimation of evidence claims in the history of knowledge
● Post-truth epistemologies as a cultural-political problematic
● Crises of expertise in history
● Environment, ecology and politics in intellectual history
● Global and local asymmetries of knowledge in intellectual history
● Gender, race, sexuality, and power in the history of knowledge
● The material practices of knowledge making
● Histories of science, histories of knowledge, and politics: historiographical continuities and ruptures
● Loci of knowledge production (geographies, laboratories, institutions)
● The politics and epistemology of labourorganisation
● The place of agency in processes of knowledge production
● The knowledge and politics of Otherness
| 2022, Sep 12th-15th International Society for Intellectual History conference Venice 2022 - Histories of Knowledge: Political, Historical and Cultural Epistemologies in Intellectual History | 1.29 M |
| 2022, Jun 14th Does a Critique of Ideology need a concept of truth? Lessons from the early 20th century. Christoph Henning (Max-Weber-Kolleg der Universität Erfurt) | 0.94 M |
| 2022, May 31st Rethinking the history of deep time. Ivano dal Prete (Yale University) | 450 K |
| 2022, May 17th The Origins of Mechanical Philosophy. Mattia Mantovani (KU Leuven) | 547 K |
| 2022, May 3rd A Marginalization of Astrology in the Age of Enlightenment? The alternative of Giuseppe Toaldo’s astro-meteorology and the appearance of the science of the influence of the stars. Simon Dolet (Universitè Côte d’Azur) | 808 K |
| 2022, April 19th Secunda et adversa fortuna. The Debate in 18th-century German Philosophy and its Cosmological Implications. Paola Rumore (Università di Torino) | 884 K |
| 2022, March 22th Telesio’s Nature: One and Three. Guido Giglioni (Università di Macerata) - What’s in a recipe? Texts and replications Lawrence Principe (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore) | 588 K |
| 2022, March 15th Kant on Humanity, Diversity and Human Value. Catherine Wilson (Emerita, University of York) | 0.97 M |
| 2022, February 22th Kant’s Universal Natural History: Between Astronomy and Rational Cosmology. Stephen Howard (KU Leuven) | 855 K |
| 2022, February 8th When rays puncture bodies: Digby contra Descartes. Laura Georgescu (University of Groningen) | 701 K |
| 2022, January 25th On Newton’s mathematical writings: disciplinary boundaries, unity, writing practices, and styles. Niccolò Guicciardini (University of Milan La Statale) | 598 K |
| 2022, January 11th Criminals, Saints and A Couple of Vampires. The Natural, the Preternatural and the Supernatural in the Different Early Modern European Cultural Contexts. Francesco Paolo de Ceglia (University of Bari) | 911 K |
2021
EXHIBITION NICOLAUS COPERNICUS (1473-1543)
2021, September 18th – December 31st
CFZ Cultural Flow Zone - Tesa 1 – Venezia
This exhibition consists in a series of images and prints about the life and work of the greatest astronomer of the Renaissance, the Polish Nicolaus Copernicus – the discoverer of modern heliocentrism who spent fundamental formative years in the Italian universities of Padua, Bologna and Ferrara. It is a realization of the Nicolaus Copernicus Foundation of Lubawa (Poland) in collaboration with the ERC EarlyModernCosmology project (Ca’ Foscari University Venice).
| 2021, December 14th Necro-Hydrology. Ifor Duncan (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice - Department of Economics) | 0.98 M |
| 2021, November 30th Borelli and the 1669 Eruption of Etna. Antonio Clericuzio (Università Roma 3) | 1.06 M |
| 2021, November 16th The Political Epistemology of AI. Matteo Pasquinelli (University of Arts and Design, Karlsruhe) | 571 K |
| 2021, November 2nd Neque mare viderunt, neque diagrammata: Picturing Space in Modern Geometry. Vincenzo De Risi (CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris) | 0.99 M |
| 2021, October 21st Rethinking Early Modern Empiricism. Charles T. Wolfe (Université Toulouse II Jean Jaurès) | 630 K |
| 2021, October 5th A Reassessment of Marcuse’s Perspective on Science, Technology and Society. Andrew Feenberg (School of Communication - Simon Fraser University, Vancouver) | 716 K |
| 2021, September 30h Crisis Memory and Oblivion in Machiavelli and Bruno. Giulio Gisondi (Istituto Italiano di Studi Filosofici, Napoli) | 751 K |
| 2021, September 17th Occasionalism and Its Trends in Natural Philosophy. Maria Emanuela Scribano (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Christian Henkel (RUG University of Groningen), Mariangela Priarolo (Independent Scholar), Bauke Wielinga (RUG University of Groningen), Andrea Sangiacomo (RUG University of Groningen). | 1.67 M |
| 2021, June 30th-July 1st - Interactive Online Workshop Political epistemology facing biopolitics: Canguilhemian perspectives. L’épistémologie politique face à la biopolitique: perspectives canguilhemiennes. Giulia Gandolfi (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia-Université Paris 1), Gerardo Ienna (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia), Charles Wolfe (Université Toulouse), Giuseppe Bianco (Ghent University), Annagiulia Canesso (Università di Padova), Monica Greco (Goldsmiths, University of London), Emiliano Sfara (Universidade de São Paulo), Elsa Dorlin (Université Toulouse), Luca Paltrinieri (Université de Rennes 1), Andrea Angelini (Université Paris 8 – Università di Firenze), Ferhat Taylan (Université Bordeaux-Montaigne), Benedetta Piazzesi (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa). | 539 K |
| 2021, June 17-18th - Interactive Online Workshop Venice-Bucharest Online Workshop in Early Modern Cosmology. Cartesian Physics and Their Receptions: Intellectual and Institutional Contexts. June 17: Andrea Strazzoni (Ca' Foscari University of Venice), Pietro Omodeo (Ca' Foscari University of Venice), Fabrizio Badassarri (Ca' Foscari University of Venice), Mihnea Dobre (University of Bucharest), Ioana Bujor (University of Bucharest), Rodolfo Garau (Ca' Foscari University of Venice), Omar Del Nonno (Ca' Foscari University of Venice), Ovidiu Babes (University of Bucharest), Grigore Vida (University of Bucharest). June 18: Roundtable discussion | 0.99 M |
| 2021, April 29th - Interactive Online Workshop "Natural Resources in Early Modern Economies of Knowledge" - Tina Asmussen (Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum / Ruhr-Universität Bochum), Sebastian Felten (University of Vienna), Helge Wendt (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Berlin / CRC ‘Episteme in Motion’, Freie Universität Berlin), Joshua Hillman (University of Leeds), Francesco Luzzini (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Berlin), Volkhard Wels (CRC ‘Episteme in Motion’, Freie Universität Berlin), Simon Brandl (CRC ‘Episteme in Motion’, Freie Universität Berlin), David Gentilcore (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Pietro Daniel Omodeo (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) | 4.00 M |
2020
| 2020, December 14th - Interactive Online Workshop Creating digital text corpora from archival materials | 837 K |
| 2020, October 6th - Brainstorming meeting Robert Szaj, Telewizja Polska, TVP Nauka "A Documentary Film Devoted to Copernicus in Italy" | 0.91 M |
| 2020, July 6th - Interactive Online Workshop Sean Winkler, Vienna Circle Institute "Quantum and Materialist Dialectics: Dynamics and Statistical Regularity in Hessenian Marxism" | 482 K |
| 2020, May 6th - Interactive Online Workshop Matiaz Vesel, Institute of Philosophy-Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana "The Nature of Copernicus’s Hypotheses" | 2.60 M |
| 2020, April 22nd - Interactive Online Workshop Vittorio Morfino, University of Milano Bicocca, "The Marxist Tradition Against the Grain: On Plural Temporality" | 1.41 M |
| 2020, April 6th - Interactive Online Seminar "Arguing about the Stars on the Southern Side of the Confessional Divide" - A seminar with individual preparation aimed to discuss working papers on early-modern cultural politics of Cosmology. Scholars involved in the publication project: Alberto Bardi (Polonsky Academy for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences - Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Rodolfo Garau (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Luis Miguel Carolino (Lisbon University Institute ISCTE-IUL), Flavia Marcacci (Pontifical Lateran University, Rome), Craig Martin (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Tayra Lanuza Navarro (University of Valencia), Pietro Daniel Omodeo (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Nydia Pineda (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), Jacomien Prins (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) | 3.21 M |
| 2020, February 19th Stefan Heßbrueggen, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, "Et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas. Mosaic Physics And Life In the Young Leibniz" | 2.70 M |
| 2020, January 24th Daniel Garber (Princeton University, Department of Philosophy), "Telesio’s Iter Gallicum: Telesio in 17th C France" and Guido Giglioni (University of Macerata, Department of Humanities), "Sense and Consciousness in Bernardino Telesio". Presentation and discussion on the book “Bernardino Telesio and the Natural Sciences in the Renaissance” by the editor prof. Pietro Daniel Omodeo | 1.14 M |
Bernardino Telesio and the Natural Sciences in the Renaissance
| 2020, January 8th Mariangela Priarolo (Ca' Foscari University of Venice), "Finalism without Finalism. Malebranche and Preformation" and Charles Wolfe (Ca' Foscari University of Venice), "Expanded mechanism and/or structural vitalism: further thoughts on the animal economy" | 0.92 M |
2019
| 2019, December 18th Maria Emanuela Scribano (Ca' Foscari University of Venice), Barnaby Hutchins (Ghent University), "Rethinking Early Modern Vitalism" | 587 K |
| 2019, December 11th Anna Jerratsch, MPIWG Berlin, "Religious Contexts of Discourses on Nature. The Comet of 1577 in Early Modern Germany" | 1.44 M |
| 2019, November 27th Matteo Cosci, University of Padua, "Galileo under cover: Pseudonymous Writings on the New Star", discussant: David Juste (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munich) | 710 K |
| 2019, November 20th Nydia Pineda de Ávila, Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México & Visiting Researcher at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, "The moon as a space of dispute: confessional and institutional agenda in lunar nomenclature in the seventeenth century" | 1.27 M |
| 2019, October 30th Ofer Gal, University of Sydney, "Baroque Astronomy. Doing without the eye: Descartes naturalized epistemology" | 1.84 M |
| 2019, October 18th Cassirer scholars, "Ernst Cassirer on Renaissance Thought" | 556 K |
| 2019, October 1st Stephen Howard, KU Leuven, "Kant on the Boundary of the World" | 1.05 M |
| 2019, September 18th Presentation by the author H Darrel Rutkin of the book "Sapientia Astrologica: Astrology, Magic and Natural Knowledge, ca. 1250-1800", discussants: David Juste (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munich) and Monica Azzolini (University of Bologna) | 0.92 M |
| 2019, June 19th Hannah Marcus (Harvard University) and Cynthia Klestinec (Miami University), "Discussions on the History of Medicine" | 5.18 M |
| 2019, June 18th Guido Giglioni (University of Macerata) and Matteo Martelli (University of Bologna), "A Conversation on Medieval and Renaissance Studies on Science" | 1.59 M |
| 2019, June 12th Luca Guzzardi, University of Milano - Dipartimento di Filosofia, "Politics of Collaboration: The Case of Astronomy and Observatory Sciences in the Late Eighteenth Century" | 660 K |
| 2019, May 30th ERC EarlyModernCosmology-K4U Joint Conference "Mettere ordine al mondo: prospettive logiche ed epistemologiche su scienza, natura, società" | 1.07 M |
| 2019, May 23rd Razieh-Sadat Mousavi (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science / Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Jonathan Regier (Ghent University), Alberto Bardi (Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University), "Cosmology in Early Medieval Islam - Through the lens of al-Fargha¯nı¯’s Elements of Astronomy" | 1.44 M |
| 2019, May 21st-22nd ERC-EarlyModernCosmology Workshop "Marsilio Ficino’s Cosmology: Sources, Reception, Historiography" | 1.49 M |
| 2019, April 11th-12th Flavio D'Abramo, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science - Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow, "Integrating science and politics: Ecological Developmental Biology and its historical roots" | 1.43 M |
| 2019, March 29th Senthil Babu (IF Pondicherry & Visiting Ca' Foscari University of Venice) and Roy Wagner (ETH Zürich), "Political Economy of Computational Work in History: The case of the Vernacular Math Traditions in India" | 715 K |
| 2019, March 20th Silvina Paula Vidal, National Council of Scientific and Technological Research / Universidad Nacional de San Martín (Argentina), “Giordano Bruno’s metaphor of the Spanish conquest as a "swallowing whale"” | 1.41 M |
| 2019, March 7th Gerardo Ienna, University of Bologna - Dipartimento di Filosofia e Comunicazione, “Introduzione alle radici francesi dell’epistemologia storica” | 1.21 M |
| 2019, March 6th Sascha Freyberg, Pietro Omodeo and Giulia Rispoli (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin), with the participation of Gerardo Ienna (University of Bologna, Dipartimento di Filosofia e Comunicazione), “Boris Hessen’s textbook on Classical Physics in the context of early Soviet approaches to historical epistemology” | 643 K |
| 2019, February 21st Ralph & Dagmar Neuhäuser, University Jena - Astrophysical Institute and University Observatory, Jena, “Astrophysical and cultural relevance of historical celestial observations - examples from the 16th and 17th century” | 1.65 M |
| 2019, February 21st Stefano Gulizia, New Europe College, Bucharest, "Nicolaus Andreae Granius: Physics and Cosmology at Helmstedt” | 1.10 M |
2018
| 2018, December 5th Jean Sanchez, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, “Astrology in modern France” | 1.05 M |
| 2018, Novembre 22nd Doina-Cristina Rusu, University of Groningen and Visiting Scholar at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, “Cosmology and Redemption in Anne Conway’s Metaphysics” | 2.61 M |
| 2018, October 17th Stefan Zieme, HU Berlin, "Interpreting Art through the History of Science. Adam Elsheimer and the Renaissance Night Sky" | 1.57 M |
| 2018, September 5th Alberto Bardi, Deutsches Studienzentrum in Venedig, “The Astronomical Manuscripts of the Bessarione Collection at the Marciana Library” | 768 K |
| 2018, June 18th Dana Jalobeanu, University of Bucharest - Roberto Bondì, University of Calabria, “Telesio and Bacon: a conversation on Renaissance science and philosophy” | 728 K |
| 2018, June 4th Ana Simões, University of Lisbon - Claudia Stein, University of Warwick - Roger Cooter, University of London, “Perspectives on epistemology and politics” | 1.42 M |
| 2018, March 20th-21st Bruno scholars, "Brainstorming for an Opera Dedicated to Bruno: Renaissance Science, Philosophy, and Art" | 457 K |
| 2018, March 2th-3rd "Towards an Ethical-Political History of Early Modern Science", the ERC-EMC editorial project | 0.92 M |
2017
| 2017, December 12th "Edition Open Access Berlin", the ERC-EMC editorial project | 0.91 M |
| 2017, November 13th-14th and 15th-18th “Verum factum: Perspectives in Political Epistemology”, the ERC-EMC book series | 226 K |
Colloquia in Venice
Colloquia of the ERC - Early Modern Cosmology group on projects. These regular research meetings take place at Malcanton Marcorà (Aula Valent) at 4:00 p.m.
2020
- 2020, June 12th, online h. 11 a.m. (ERC plenum). Reading of Watts "Epidemics and History"
- 2020, June 4th, online (Early Modernists). Early Modern Writing Workshop: Omar del Nonno "Beyond the Method: Baconian Legacy in the Development of Spinoza’s Account of Imagination"
- 2020, May 27th, online (Political Epistemologists). Reading and discussion of Braidotti "The Posthuman"
- 2020, May 20th, online (Early Modernists). Early Modern Writing Workshop: Discussion on the paper "The Political Epistemology of Campanella’s Astrology" by Pietro Daniel Omodeo and Darrel Rutkin
- 2020, May 13th, online (Political Epistemologists). Discussion on Haraway
- 2020, April, 27th, online (Early Modernists). Discussion on working papers by group members
- 2020, March 30th, online h. 11 a.m. (Early Modernists). Discussion of Foucault and Rose on biopolitics
- 2020, March 23th, online h. 11 a.m. (ERC plenum). Discussion of Sokal, Pseudoscience and postmodernism: Antagonists or fellow-travelers?
- 2020, March 13th, online (Political Epistemologists). Discussion of Merchant, "The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution"
- 2020, February 5th (ERC plenum). Discussion of "The Fall of Man and the Foundation of Science" by P. Harrison
2019
- 2019, December 6th – Pietro Daniel Omodeo, discussion on the book: “Political Epistemology”.
- 2019, June 12th - Marco Storni, “Institutions and Politics in the Debate over the Shape of the Earth, 1666-1740”
- 2019, May 6th - Jacomien Prins, “Marsilio Ficino’s Timaeus Commentary: Musical Speculations of a Renaissance Interpreter”.
- 2019, April 15th - Gregorio Baldin, “Against Aristotle and Metaphysics: Paolo Sarpi’s Natural Philosophy”.
- 2019, March 20th - Rodolfo Garau, “Manuscript draft on the introduction to my book on the concept of conatus”. Discussant: Omar del Nonno
- 2019, February 4th - Francesca Putignano, “Feminist Standpoint Theory: an Overview of Historical Roots and Epistemological Issues”. Discussant: Sascha Freyberg
- 2019, January 16th - Matteo Fornasier, “Echoes of Renaissance Thought in Academic Medicine and Botany in Paris (XVI-XVII centuries)” Discussant: Rodolfo Garau
2018
- 2018, December 19th - Omar Del Nonno, “The behaviour of the free man in the Ethics and the Tractatus politicus”. Discussant, Gregorio Baldin.
- 2018, December 5th - Sascha Freyberg, “Ethico-political Consequences of Cosmology: Edgar Wind on Kant‘s Antinomies”. Discussant: Omar Del Nonno.
- 2018, November 22nd - Jacomien Prins, “Marin Mersenne: Harmonist at the Heart of the Scientific Revolution”. Discussant: Darrel Rutkin.
- 2018, October 17th – Gregorio Baldin, “Temporal power, spiritual power and potestà de’ prencipi: Politics and political theology in Sarpi and Hobbes”. Discussant: Rodolfo Garau
- 2018, October 3rd - Darrel Rutkin, “What Makes Early Modern Cosmology ‘Early Modern’?: Reflections on and a Suggestion for a Historical Periodization Scheme”. Discussant: Pietro Omodeo.
- 2018, September 26th - Pietro Omodeo, “Political Epistemology of Early Modern Cosmology.”
Calendar and announcements
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