October 9th is the Feast Day of a medieval Bishop who also has a serious claim to be the first “real physicist”, Robert Grosseteste, who was Bishop of Lincoln from 1235 to 1253. He was born at Stra…
Source: Resources for Remembering Robert Grosseteste on his Feast Day
A guest blog by Rev. Dr David Thomson, Bishop of Huntingdon…
A short notice to record that Clive Siviour’s public lecture for the Ordered Universe is now available on the website and can be accessed here. Many thanks again to Clive for sharing his expertise and enthusiasm for his research.
On the 28th September, Giles will give a public lecture to the McGill Medievalists, supported by the Mellon Foundation. The subject will be the place of Astronomy in twelfth century schemes for Liberal Arts. Grosseteste’s De artibus liberalibus features strongly; the lecture will explore what Grosseteste sets as his task in the treatise and contextualise some of its more particular and idiosyncratic elements. Alchemy, Medicine, the impact ofContinue reading “‘To Loose the Bonds of Arcturus’: Ordered Universe in Montreal”
The Ordered Universe project has a new publication. Giles, Tom and Hannah wrote a reflective piece on the project, exploring the interdisciplinary nature of its aims and practice, and how the collaborative reading (and writing) work in practice. The article is now published, in Palgrave Communications, and, as open access, can be read or freely Continue reading “Listening Between the Lines”
The Ordered Universe symposium on Space and Place, focusing on Grosseteste’s treatises on De sphera and the De sex differentiis, included a public lecture and forum. The lecture, delivered by Clive Siviour, explored his research into high speed photography and material deformation. The film of the lecture will be added to the website shortly. Given in the Williams Library at St Chad’s College, Durham University, the lecture was a very stimulating introduction for non-experts, but full of research insights and details for Continue reading “Imaging Fast Phenomena and Chladni Plates – Public Forum”
The latest in the series of Ordered Universe symposia took place last week, between 1st and 3rd September. We gathered in Durham once more, in the hospitable surroundings of St John’s College, to examine two of Grosseteste’s treatises, and review progress on those now in the publication roster (on which more soon). The meeting was, formally, for the 17th collaborative reading symposium of the project. The experience from those meetings showed in the way that the team were able to move between texts, editions, translationsContinue reading “Grosseteste on Space and Place”
Through a Glass Darkly has its own Tumblr site for posts and images, from the Creative Collaboration Seminars, other meetings and from participants as inspiration takes them. Set up by Alan Fentiman (to whom the project is very grateful), the site incorporates an interactive record of the collaborations that from the project. We hope that you enjoy the pictures, films and visualisations!
The second creative collaboration seminars for the Through a Glass Darkly project took place on 31st August, with a return visit for Ordered Universe team members to the National Glass Centre, University of Sunderland. This time, however, it was the turn of the scientists and mediaevalists to try their hands at working with glass. We did so, with a fantastic morning of sand-casting, led by Colin Rennie and Cate Watkinson. After setting a frame in red sand, you pick a mould or model a free-style structure (we had examples from geometric shapes, to fish, a tobacco pipe, a jelly-fish, shells), dust in some colour derived from silicates (being extremely careful not to breathe them in), and then add molten glass at over 1000˚centigrade.Continue reading “Through a Glass Darkly: Making with Glass”
It is finally time for the next symposium in the Ordered Universe Symposium Series, this time on the topic of space and place in Grosseteste’s astronomical thought. This symposium takes place in Durham, in a friendly and welcoming space provided by St John’s College. The proceedings will focus on a second reading of Grosseteste’s long treatise on the spherical universe, and a first acquaintance with his much shorter treatment of the ways in which differences of place and location may be described with precision. Continue reading “Symposium on Space and Place”