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Overview

The Sixteenth Biennial History of Astronomy Workshop will be held June 11-14, 2025, at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and will include a one-day trip to the Adler Planetarium in Chicago

Call for Proposals

The call for session and individual paper proposals has opened with proposals due by 1 February 2025.

Please →click here← for further details.

Workshop Details

Details about this year's workshop are available through the below links:

• Registration (coming soon)
• Program Overview
• Abstracts (coming soon)

• Travel Information
• Call for Proposals
• Group Photo (coming soon)

Workshop Theme:

Visual practices in the production and transmission of astronomical knowledge

Visual practices are deeply intertwined with the production and transmission of astronomical knowledge. Visual features of texts and other materials take multiple forms, such as systems of numerical notation, hand-drawn geometric figures and illustrations, printed tables and charts of data, schematics of tools and instruments, high-resolution photographs and video, dynamic computer simulations, and even augmented-reality. Such material is often associated with the transmission of knowledge, but just as important was the epistemic role of visual reasoning and representations as historical actors collected information, raised questions, and developed theories to understand and explain astronomical phenomena. How were texts, images, and tables co-produced, and how did they interact to produce and transmit knowledge? What aspects of the visual layout and structure of a document were contingent upon the medium in which it was produced, or derived from the techniques and tools used to create it? What aims or functions were assigned to diagrams and other images, and what mental and material mechanisms allowed them to fulfill these purposes? How did certain visual practices or representations transform over time, and what was their relationship with changing practices of observation, experimentation, teaching, or computing? Attention to these and other visual practices provides a means for historians to gain insights into the development and dissemination of astronomy and related disciplines, and we welcome papers exploring similar topics within and across different time periods, geographic regions, and cultural contexts.

Invited Speaker

Our invited speaker is Prof. Dr. Matteo Valleriani. He is Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin, Honorary Professor at the Technische Universität Berlin, Professor by Special Appointment at Tel Aviv University, and Principal Investigator at the Berlin Institute for the Foundations of Learning and Data (BIFOLD). In his research, Valleriani investigates processes of emergence, transformation, circulation, homogenization, and oblivion of scientific knowledge in relation to its practical, social, and institutional dimensions. His current research takes place in the framework of computational history (The Sphere). A further focus of his research is on the epistemic function of visual material in scientific research. Within this context he co-develops and applies machine learning technologies. Among his major publications: Publishing Sacrobosco’s «De sphaera» in Early Modern Europe. Modes of Material and Scientific Exchange (with A. Ottone), Springer Nature, 2022, De sphaera of Johannes de Sacrobosco in the Early Modern Period: The Authors of the Commentaries, Springer Nature, 2020, The Structures of Practical Knowledge, Springer Nature, 2017, Metallurgy, Ballistics and Epistemic Instruments: The “Nova Scientia” of Nicolò Tartaglia. A New Edition, Edition Open Access, 2013, Galileo Engineer, Springer, 2010.