Ordered Universe

Facing Out – Being Human Festival in Durham, November 2014

Screenshot 2014-11-01 19.40.58 — Facing Out Video

As an introduction to the Durham part of the Festival of Humanities, we’ve prepared a short (ish) video for both strands: the Ordered Universe’s ‘From Dark Ages to Dark Matter‘, with Giles and Richard, and Barbara Graziosi’s ‘Face-to-Face: Encounters with Ancient Authors: Portraits in Libraries’. We hope this whets the appetite: Dark Ages to Dark Matter is 18th November, with the lecture in Ushaw on the evening of the 19th; Face-to-Face happens throughout that week in Palace Green Library. Continue reading “Facing Out – Being Human Festival in Durham, November 2014”

From Dark Ages to Dark Matter – Programme

The Ordered Universe programme for the public symposium, 18th November 2014, and for the Ushaw College Lecture is now available here. There will of course be paper versions for the day itself, as well as a resources pack with translations of the treatises, and a guide to the experiments we will follow. Tickets are still available for both the symposium and the Ushaw Lecture, the latter organised by the Centre for Catholic Studies, whose partnership we are very grateful to enjoy. For the symposium collect tickets from the World Heritage Visitor Centre, for the Ushaw Lecture contact Dr James Kelly, at james.kelly3@durham.ac.uk. We look forward to introducing Grosseteste to you all.

Ordered Universe at the Festival of Humanities

Being Human, the Festival of the Humanities is now a little under a month away. Ordered Universe team members at the Dark Ages to Dark Matter activities will include: Giles Gasper, Tom McLeish, Hannah Smithson, Richard Bower, Brian Tanner, Mike Huxtable and Sigbjørn Sønnesyn. There will be a number of Durham students involved as well, helping to lead the collaborative reading sessions, which, as those who are there will see, are the heartbeat of our interdisciplinary activities, and the best way of all to get into not just a piece of writing from the past, but the best way to try and follow the thoughts of the person who created it. Continue reading “Ordered Universe at the Festival of Humanities”

From Dark Ages to Dark Matter – Festival of Humanities

The Ordered Universe is very proud and pleased to be part of the inaugural UK National Festival of the Humanities, which takes place between 15th-23rd November this year. The Festival aims to engage the public with innovative humanities research, and takes place across the country, with university hubs and their cultural and community partners. The programme is a true showcase for the diversity and inventiveness of research into humanities, with a fantastic array of projects, activities and opportunities to come face to face with the researchers and their subjects. Continue reading “From Dark Ages to Dark Matter – Festival of Humanities”

Ordered Universe 2010-2014: a Visual Compilation

The Ordered Universe Project completed its 12th research symposium with the Mahfouz Forum on De generatione sonorum [‘On the Generation of Sounds]. For those that couldn’t be there the public lectures will be available soon, but in the meantime, there is available here a conspectus in visual form of our activities: pick your own sound-track (and watch those vowel and consonant shapes), and enjoy! Thanks for following.

Sound Medieval and Sound Modern: Public and the Future

Our workshop meeting concluded with the public lectures, on which Ulrike has commented already. It was a privilege to speak in the Pichette Auditorium, and a particular pleasure to see some Durham alumni in the audience – thank you Martin, Heather and Aversa. Heather had even had the privilege (!) of working through Grosseteste’s De colore and Letter 1 in my Special Subject class 2012-2013. The support from the Ordered Universe team, and the Pembroke community was also very much appreciated, from the warm introduction by the Master, Dame Lynne Brindley, to the questions which came thick and fast at the end. Continue reading “Sound Medieval and Sound Modern: Public and the Future”

Sound Medieval and Sound Modern: Acoustics and How to Use and Astrolabe

The final day of the workshop saw the team complete the read-through of the treatise, and the substantial progress on the question of the seven, and five motions. David Howard led off the day with a discussion of acoustic theory, including models of the human vocal tract, and the intriguing vocal tract organ – finally making the vox humana stop on an organ make sense and sound nice! A combination of palaeographical, historical and mathematical insights and observations enabled us to get through the most challenging part of the text, and with the sense of ‘Ah-hah’ to which Ulrike and Tom referred, and which we have almost come to expect. Nader el-Bisri and John Coleman were key to getting us started, but the final sections were a real vindication of the collaborative reading process.Continue reading “Sound Medieval and Sound Modern: Acoustics and How to Use and Astrolabe”

Grosseteste and the Harp

Over dinner on Thursday, Mike treated us to a reading a 14th century moralising poem, celebrating Grosseteste’s love of the harp, the virtues with which he associated it, and the symbolism to which it was ascribed. The poem appeared in the 1303 Handlyng Synne, by Robert Manning of Bourne/Robert de Brune. Continue reading “Grosseteste and the Harp”

Sound Medieval and Sound Modern: Reading the De generatione sonorum

As Tom’s earlier post indicated, the collaborative reading sessions on the De generatione sonorum exceeded our expectations. We get through the whole of the text over the course of the three sessions, but made substantial progress in establishing the reading of the text, and, as we have done time and again, enjoyed collectively identifying and following the precision and self-consistency of Grosseteste’s writing. The treatise is constructed effectively over two parts, the first deals with both the generation of sound in the abstract, the second relates this to the production of the human voice and to vowel and consonantal sounds. John Coleman gave an introduction to phonetics and vocal production, using audio-visual examples, as well as himself, as you can see on the right. This discussion provided an important anchor in our intellectual movements between the medieval and modern understanding of sound.Continue reading “Sound Medieval and Sound Modern: Reading the De generatione sonorum”

Sound Medieval and Sound Modern: Reflections on the Mahfouz Forum

It is two weeks since our workshop meeting in Oxford, as part of the Pembroke College Mahfouz Forum, and, as Tom and Ulrike’s posts demonstrate, it has inspired a great deal of thinking and reflection. The Ordered Universe team were extremely grateful to the Mahfouz Forum for funding the workshop, and allowing us to invite new participants as well as familiar faces. 20 or so of us, and from a wonderful array of disciplines, and all to bring focus to one of Grosseteste’s earliest texts. Continue reading “Sound Medieval and Sound Modern: Reflections on the Mahfouz Forum”