The Ordered Universe Project takes part in a wide variety of academic conferences, humanities-based, science-based and many in between. From the medieval hothouses of the International Congresses at Kalamazoo, Michigan to the International Vision Society, we aim to disseminate and present our engagement together, and with Grosseteste’s scientific vision.
2019
International Medieval Congress Leeds, 1-4 July
University of Leeds, UK
Four sessions and a roundtable organised by the Ordered Universe project at the Congress:
Tuesday 2nd: 9.00-10.30: Ordered Universe, I: Robert Grosseteste’s Cosmology – The Physics of Light and the Dimensions of Materiality
Sponsor: Ordered Universe Research Project
Organizer: Giles E. M. Gasper, Durham University
Moderator/Chair: Giles E. M. Gasper, Durham University
1) Robert Grosseteste: Patterns of Causality, Matter, Light, and the Divine
Nicola Polloni, Institut für Philosophie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
2) Grosseteste, Natural Illumination, and Otherworldly Glow in Medieval Preaching
Francesca Galli, Istituto di studi italiani, Università della svizzera italiana, Lugano
3) Feeling Disoriented and Keeping Your Eye on the Horizon in the 13th Century
(Language: English)
Tom McLeish, Department of Physics / Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
Tuesday 2nd: 11.15-12.45: Ordered Universe, II: Seeing is Believing?: Robert Grosseteste’s Theories of Vision
Sponsor: Ordered Universe Research Project
Organizer: Giles E. M. Gasper, Durham University
Moderator/Chair: Sigbjørn Sønnesyn, Durham University
1) All the Colours of the Rainbow: Human Colour Science and a 13th-Century System of Colour-Ordering
Hannah Smithson, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford
2) Seeing Clearly: Robert Grosseteste, Morality, and Learning
Giles E. M. Gasper, Department of History, Durham University
Tuesday 2nd: 14.15-15.45: Ordered Universe, III: What Did the Planets Ever Do For Us? – Robert Grosseteste and the Appliance of Science
Sponsor: Ordered Universe Research Project
Organizer: Giles E. M. Gasper, Durham University
Moderator/Chair: Nicola Polloni, Institut für Philosophie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
1) A Discipline at the Crossroads: Grosseteste’s Compotus between Philosophy and Pedagogy
Philipp Nothaft, All Souls College, University of Oxford
2) Grosseteste, the Weather, and Planetary Impact
Anne Lawrence-Mathers, Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Reading
3) Dating Grosseteste’s Comet: Observation and Report of Comets, 1000-1300
Brian Tanner, Department of Physics, Durham University
Tuesday 2nd: 16.00-18.30: Ordered Universe, IV: The Medieval Science of Sound as You’ve Never Heard It Before
Sponsor: Ordered Universe Research Project
Organizer: Giles E. M. Gasper, Durham University
Moderator/Chair: Tom McLeish, Department of Physics / Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
1) Seeing Sound as Movement in the Medieval Mind
Joshua Harvey, Department of Engineering Science / Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford
2) The Sound of Silence: Grosseteste’s ‘On the Generation of Sound’ and the Secret Reception of Aristotle’s Natural Philosophy
Sigbjørn Olsen Sønnesyn, Department of History, Durham University
Tuesday 2nd: 19.00-20.00: Ordered Universe: The Human Being as Microcosm – The Sciences and Humanities in Collaboration – A Round Table Discussion
Sponsor: Ordered Universe Research Project
Organizer: Giles E. M. Gasper, Durham University
Moderator/Chair: Tom McLeish, Department of Physics / Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
Bringing together medieval specialists and modern scientists is an unusual thing to do. However, in the case of exploring medieval science it has proved, in the context of the Ordered Universe Project, a vital element in the elucidation of complex treatises on natural phenomena. The proposed round table will debate the interdisciplinary methodology and broaden the implications for such radical collaborative working from the scientific works of Robert Grosseteste to pre-modern science more generally conceived. How collaboration is best articulated and practised will form a significant part of the debate, which will involve representatives from a variety of different disciplines.
Participants include Laura Cleaver (Trinity College Dublin), Giles E. M. Gasper (Durham University), Joshua Harvey (University of Oxford), Clive Siviour (University of Oxford), Brian Tanner (Durham University), and Cate Watkinson (University of Sunderland).
June 26th: Interdisciplinary Workshop:Editing: Challenges and Directions, 26th June, 2018
Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Durham University, UK
Giles E. M. Gasper, ‘The Appliance of Science: Editing in a Multidisciplinary Context‘
Ordered Universe Seminar, 5th March 2019
Department of History, Durham University, UK
Dr Nicola Polloni (Humboldt University, Berlin), ‘Looking into the Unknowable: Pre-Modern Conundrums of Prime Matter’
Interdisciplinary Medieval and Renaissance Seminar (IMARS), March 4th 2019,
UCL, London, UK
Giles E. M. Gasper ‘The Scientific Works of Robert Grosseteste’
2018
Colour Vision Workshop, 7th June, 2018
Department of Psychology, Durham University, UK
Giles E. M. Gasper, ‘Colour, Vision and a 13th Century Rainbow’
Tom McLeish’s Farewell Event, 29th May, 2018
Durham University, UK
Brian Tanner: ‘Tom McLeish: A very remarkable Pro-Vice Chancellor’
Giles E. M. Gasper: ‘Science and Wisdom in Faith: Pastoral Care Medieval and Modern’
53rd International Congress 12th-15th May 2018
University of Western Michigan, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
Two sessions organised by the Ordered Universe project at the Congress:
Friday 11th at 1.30 pm: Structures of Order in Medieval Science I: Experience and Authorities
Sponsor: Ordered Universe Research Project
Organizer: Giles E. M. Gasper, Durham University
Presider: Laura Cleaver, Trinity College Dublin
1) ‘Roger Bacon on Matter: Between Aristotle and Experience’
Nicola Polloni, Durham University and the Humboldt University
2) ‘Robert Grosseteste’s Letter 127 and the Ordering of Knowledge’
Giles E. M. Gasper, Durham University
Friday 11th at 3.30 pm: Structures of Order in Medieval Science II: Visualization and Diagrammatic Expression
Sponsor: Ordered Universe Research Project
Organizer: Giles E. M. Gasper, Durham University
Presider: Giles E. M. Gasper
1) Ad Huiusmodi Figuram: Visualizing Astronomical Knowledge in England, ca. 1140–1260
Laura Cleaver, Trinity College Dublin
2) Ordering the Cosmos: Reconstructing a Diagram of Opicinus de Canistris (1296–c. 1354)
Sarah Griffin, University of Oxford
3) Visual Pedagogies in Twelfth-Century Saint Victor
Karl Kinsella, University of York
University of Leeds: University Academic Fellowship Programme: Research Excellence, 24th April 2018
Keynote Address:
Professor Tom McLeish and Dr Giles E. M. Gasper, ‘Positively Medieval Methodology for Interdisciplinary Collaboration’
Authority and Innovation in Early Franciscan Thought (c.1220-45), ‘The Summa Halensis: Doctrines and Debates’ 13th-14th April, 2018
All Soul’s College, Oxford
Dr Giles E. M. Gasper, ‘The Doctrine of Creation in the Early Franciscans and Robert Grosseteste’
Respondent: Deborah Grice (Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford)
British Society for the History of Philosophy, Annual Conference, 12th-14th April 2018
‘Habit in the History of Philosophy‘, Durham University
Dr Sigbjørn Sønnesyn, ‘Aristotle’s natural philosophy in the early works of Robert Grosseteste’
Dr Giles E. M. Gasper, ‘Robert Grosseteste and the Liberal Arts’
2017
‘Astronomy Across the Medieval World’, 18th November, 2017
St Cross College, University of Oxford, Centre for the History and Philosophy of Physics
Dr Giles E. M. Gasper, ‘The Service of Astronomy’ Astronomy and its Implications in Medieval Europe’
History of Christianity Seminar, 19th October 2017
Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University
Dr Giles E. M. Gasper, ‘Ordered Universe in Outline’
Aspectus and Affectus: Robert Grosseteste, Understanding and Feeling, Conference: March 31- April 1, 2017 Georgetown University – funded by Georgetown University and Arts and Humanities Council, UK, with travel support from Durham University, University of Oxford and University of Chicago
Friday, March 31st
Location: Georgetown University, McShain Lounge
Brett Smith: ‘A Theme Song of His Life’: Aspectus and Affectus in the Writings of Robert Grosseteste
Giles Gasper: ‘The Background to Grosseteste’s Aspectus–Affectus Distinction: Anselm, Astronomy and the De spiritu et anima’
Sigbjørn Sønnesyn: ‘Beati mundo corde quoniam ipsi Deum videbunt’: Affectus of the Soul and the Sight of the Mind in Isaac of Stella
Nicola Poloni: Effectus, affectus, and defectus: Causality and Causation of the Substrate
Neil Lewis: ‘The Structure of the Soul: Aspectus and Affectus in Richard Fishacre and Richard Rufus of Cornwall’
Timothy Farrant: ‘Celestial Illusion, Perception, and Moralised Zoology in Alexander Neckam’s De naturis rerum’
Kathy Bader: ‘Arabic Astronomical Texts in the 12th-Century Severn Valley’
Public Lecture: Modern Science, Medieval Studies and Art in Dialogue: Bishop Robert Grosseteste’s (c.1170 – 1253) Scientific World of Light, Sound and the Big Bang
Neil Lewis: ‘Introduction’
Tom McLeish: ‘When a Modern Physicist meets a Medieval Scientist’
Giles Gasper: ‘Robert Grosseteste and the Ordered Universe’
Tom McLeish: ‘Sound and Space’
Giles Gasper: ‘Creative Collaborations’
Ross Ashton: ‘Projecting the Cosmos: Projection Art and the Ordered Universe’ (includes a montage of three sound and light shows: The World Machine, Spiritus, and Spiritus: Light and Dark, from Light Festivals at Durham (2015), Berlin (2016) and Cambridge (2017))
Saturday, April 1st
Location: Georgetown University, Philosophy Department conference room, 204 New North.
Nader El-Bizri: ‘Alhazen’s Theory of Visual Perception and its Physiological, Cognitive and Experiential Bearings’
Tom McLeish: An Exploration of Scientific Creativity through the Mirror of Aspectus and Affectus
Hannah Smithson: ‘The Embodiment of Human Perception: Exchanges between Robert Grosseteste and Modern Perceptual Science’
Joshua Harvey: ‘On the generation, transmission, and perception of sound’
Luke Fidler: ‘Aspectus and the Apperception of Sculpture’
Pre-publication workshop: De artibus liberalibus and De generatione sonorum
If you would like to learn about our participants, please find more here: About our Participants.
2016
‘Interdisciplinary Research: Policy and Practice’, joint HEFCE, RCUK and British Academy event, 8th December 2016, British Academy, London
Tom McLeish presented the final plenary talk on Interdisciplinary Research in the UK with the case study of the Ordered Universe project.
2016 Edward Delaval Lecture in Physics, 16th November 2016, Lincoln University
Tom McLeish, ‘A Medieval Big Bang Theory – An Interdisciplinary Tale’
St John’s College, Graduate Christian Union, 4th November 2016, University of British Columbia, Canada
Tom McLeish, ‘A Medieval Big Bang Theory – An Interdisciplinary Tale’. Part of a longer tour in Canada and the US, around Tom’s interests in Faith and Wisdom in Science.
18.00, St John’s College Lounge.
The Global Aspiring Medic Conference, 16th July 2016, University of Hong Kong
Hannah Smithson, ‘A Window of Opportunity for Visual Neuroscience: High-resolution in
Vivo Imaging of the Human Retina’. Hannah also talked about the Ordered Universe Project to challenge pre-conceptions about discipline boundaries and linear trajectories of academic pursuit.
Centennial Campus, The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong
Medieval Philosophy Research Seminar, 15th June 2016, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Giles Gasper, Cecilia Panti and Sigbjørn Sønnesyn, ‘Robert Grosseteste in multi-disciplinary perspective: medievl and modern science’
2.30-6.00 Bibliothèque des Sciences Humaines
Centre of History and Philosophy of Science, Seminar Series, 18th May 2016
University of Leeds, UK
Tom McLeish, ‘Medieval Lessons for the Contemporary Science and Religion Debate’
3.15-5.00 pm, Baines Wing, G36
51st International Congress on Medieval Studies, 12th-15th May 2016
University of Western Michigan, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA,
Thursday 12th at 1.30 pm: The Scientific Works of Robert Grosseteste
Sponsor: Ordered Universe Research Project
Organizer: Giles E. M. Gasper, Durham Univ.
Presider: Nicholas Everett, Univ. of Toronto
1) ‘“But first: are you experienced?”: Robert Grosseteste’s Experiential Epistemology’
Sigbjørn Olsen Sønnesyn, Durham University
2) ‘Robert Grosseteste: Heir to the Severn Valley Mathematical School’
Kathy Bader, Durham University
3) ‘Science and Arts: Robert Grosseteste on the Liberal Arts’
Giles E. M. Gasper, Durham University
‘Medieval Physics in Oxford’, 27th February, 2016
St Cross College, University of Oxford, Centre for the History and Philosophy of Physics
‘Robert Grosseteste: The Oxford Years’, Dr Jack Cunningham (Bishop Grosseteste University)
‘Summary of the Day’, Professor Brian Tanner (Durham University)University of Oxford
Medieval Mind Seminar Series, 28th January 2016
Durham University, Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies and Dept of Philosophy
‘Words Incarnate: Spirituality, Experience and Epistemology in Twelfth-Century Thought’
Sigbjørn Sønnesyn
2015
Travelling Wisdom: Medieval Science in the North c.1000-c.1500, 21st-23rd May, 2015
Centre for Medieval Literature, Syddansk Universitet, Odense, Denmark
‘Robert Grosseteste: An Ordered, and Interdisciplinary Universe – Medieval and Modern Science’
Giles Gasper (Durham University) and Brian Tanner (Durham University)
2014
1st International Conference on the History of Physics, 4th-5th Sept, 2014
Institute of Physics at Cambridge
‘Before Electromagnetism: a Medieval Multiverse Created from the Coupling of Light and Matter’
Poster presentation by Professor Brian Tanner (Durham University)
Robert Grosseteste and the Pursuit of Religious and Scientific Learning in the Middle-Ages, 18-20 July, 2014
International Grosseteste Society Conference, Bishop Grosseteste University
‘Colours of the Rainbow: Robert Grosseteste’s Three-Dimensional Colour Space’, Hannah Smithson (University of Oxford)
‘Grosseteste’s Hexaemeron: the Order and Beauty of the Universe, Ancient and Modern’
Giles Gasper (Durham University)
‘A Mathematical Interpretation of the De luce’
Richard Bower (Durham University)
‘The Theological Use of Science and Philosophy in Robert Grosseteste and Adam Marsh according to Roger Bacon: The ‘Case Studies’ of Angelic Movements and the Rainbow’
Cecilia Panti (Università di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’)
‘Medieval Lessons for Modern Challenges to Science and Religion’
Tom McLeish (Durham University)