Through a Glass Darkly: Creative Collaborative Seminar

The next in the Ordered Universe Through a Glass Darkly Creative Collaboration Seminars with the National Glass Centre, University of Sunderland, takes place next week, on January 10th. This time we will be in Durham, at the Department of History and, to top the day off, at the Palace Green Library learning centre to be introduced to some medieval manuscripts. The seminar will review work from the Ordered Universe and present, in outline, the treatises On the Sphere – De sphera, On the Six Differences – De sex differentiis and Continue reading “Through a Glass Darkly: Creative Collaborative Seminar”

New Members of the Ordered Universe Team

Ordered Universe has two new members of the team starting this month, whom we can  welcome officially to their respective roles. Our Administrative Co-ordinator Dr Rachael Matthews stood down at the end of 2016.  We all owe Rachael a enormous debt of gratitude for her tireless work in ensuring a proper platform for the project, rozgreendesigning the website and promotional materials, and allowing the academic programme to flourish. Rachael’s responsibilities will be taken on by  Rosalind Green.  Continue reading “New Members of the Ordered Universe Team”

An Award for the World Machine

World Machine
World Machine

It is a great pleasure to announce that the Durham University Marketing and Communications Office was shortlisted for its coverage of the World Machine at Durham Lumiere 2015, for the Chartered Institute of Public Relations PRide Awards North East. At the Award the team won silver in its category. Karen Frost (Marketing and Communications – Student Experience), Greg Robson (Physics) and Kirsten Swanston (Development and Alumni Relations Office) received the award on behalf of the University. The award recognises the collaboration between departments and units, researchers and the artistic team behind the projection (headed by Ross Ashton), working with the public, undergraduates, research students, academic and support staff. A really fantastic achievement and a great experience of which to have been part!

Project Cosmos: Cambridge e-Luminate Festival

The Ordered Universe has another artistic collaboration up and running. Project Cosmos, funded by Durham University, is a collaboration with projection artists Ross Ashton and Karen Monid from The Projection Studio. Drawing on previous experience of working together for World Machine, in tandem with the Durham Institute of Computational Cosmology, for Durham Lumiere 2015 (returning in 2017), the project will create another light and sound show fusing the past and present.Continue reading “Project Cosmos: Cambridge e-Luminate Festival”

Sculpting With Light: Medieval and Modern Cosmology

Meniscus © Alex Carr
Fire-Spectrum © Alex Carr

It is delightful to announce a successful application to the Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residence Scheme for Alexandra Carr. Sculpting With Light: Medieval and Modern Cosmology will confront human attempts to grasp and master the structure and meaning of the universe. Inspired by Durham’s resources, from illuminated medieval manuscripts to the DiRac2-Super-Computer, the residency will enable Alex to spend the summer in Durham, working with Giles and Richard Bower and Tom McLeish, and many others, to explore medieval and modern cosmology. Continue reading “Sculpting With Light: Medieval and Modern Cosmology”

PhD Position for Grosseteste Studies

Some exciting news to pass on. Bishop Grosseteste University is funding a PhD studentship for studies on Grosseteste and the Science of Learning. The Ordered Universe project is delighted to advertise this – please circulate it to any and all who would be interested and qualified. Enquiries about the position should go, as the advert below indicates, to Jack Cunningham. There is a good amount of time for applications and this represents a wonderful opportunity.

advert-studentships-2016-17

Heaven’s Above! An Interactive Exhibition

Well, it has been about three weeks since the Being Human, National Festival of Humanities activities took place in Durham. Philipp Nothaft’s magnificent lecture on the dating of Easter (just before Advent, appropriately) on the 18th November, which attracted an audience of over 80 and is available in video form, began events. The lecture took place Continue reading “Heaven’s Above! An Interactive Exhibition”

Heaven’s Above Features….

Philipp Nothaft

Today is the launch of Being Human! Ordered Universe Events start tomorrow, with the public talk by Philipp Nothaft  (pictured above). Philipp is a graduate of the University of Munich, has been associated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University College London, and the Warburg Institute. He was appointed as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at All Soul’s College, University of Oxford, in 2015. We’re delighted that Philipp is able to give this talk – it forms his major research area. He explores Time, Astronomy/Astrology and Calendars in both medieval and early modern Europe, and across a fascinating and wide-ranging series of  texts. Continue reading “Heaven’s Above Features….”

Events this week! Heaven’s Above

IDL TIFF file

Being Human, the National Festival of Humanities, opens across the UK on the 17th November, this Thursday. With nine days of events from Scotland to Cornwall, Northern Ireland to London this year is as diverse in the range of research inspired by the humanities, as it is in geography! There are a number of events taking place in the North-East of England: Hoping for Peace, Imagining War: British Writers 1890s-1920s and The Power of Print in 18th Century Newcastle organised by Northumbria University, Scaling the Heights: Mountains and Vertical Megastructures, Maternity Tales – Listening to Birth Spaces Past and Present and Hope and Fear in Children’s Books organised by Newcastle University. And, there are the two events organised at Durham University under the umbrella title of Heaven’s Above! Giles was talking about the last two in particular on the Ingrid Hagemann Show today (13.11.16   –  at around 1hr 45 mins in on the listen again): the excitement of medieval astronomy, mechanical clocks, and what he’d like to do if he could go back in time.Continue reading “Events this week! Heaven’s Above”