International conference on Ancient Greek Mathematics
Dear All,
I am pleased to announce that an international conference
on Ancient Greek Mathematics will be hosted by Birkbeck College, University of
London, and I would be grateful if you could circulate this email to colleagues
and students who may be interested.
International Conference, London: 10-11 May 2013
‘Revolutions and Continuity in Greek Mathematics’
In 1962, T. Kuhn’s influential book The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions challenged the dominant view of the time that scientific
progress is ‘continuous’ and introduced the (rather revolutionary) term
‘revolution’ in the vocabulary of the historians of science. Considering that
the scholars of ancient Greek mathematics do not (usually) work in literary
isolation, it was only a matter of time before this terminology was introduced
into the field; thus, when S. Unguru’s 1975 paper ‘On the Need to Rewrite the
History of Greek Mathematics’ caused heated debates on the nature of Greek
mathematics, some scholars rushed to support the idea that a revolution took
place. An agreement, however, could not be reached, not only in regard to the
current state of affairs in the discipline, but, perhaps more importantly, in
regard to the usefulness of employing terms like ‘revolutions’ and ‘continuity’
in order to describe the progress of the field.
While these debates were taking place in the field of the
historiography of Greek mathematics, time did not stand still in the field of
its history either; in fact, the impressive number of recent publications
reveals growing interest for the subject. Historians of Greek mathematics today
apply methodologies, which appear as diverse as the authors themselves; i.e.,
in terms of language, culture, educational background and selection of topics.
The aim of this two-day international conference is to bring together a number
of leading scholars of Ancient Greek mathematics in order to explore the ideas
of ‘revolutions’ and ‘continuity’ as they appear in/disappear from the Greek
mathematics. Within this framework, we shall endeavour, through examining
various case-studies, to identify and evaluate some general characteristics of
the methodologies and approaches of the discipline as practiced today and,
additionally, to suggest directions for future research.
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Confirmed keynote speakers: Professor Sabetai Unguru
(Tel-Aviv), Professor Bernard Vitrac (Paris), Dr Serafina Cuomo (London), Dr
Andrew Gregory (London), Professor Vassilis Karasmanis (Athens), Professor Jean
Christianidis (Athens).
We welcome proposals for papers (abstracts) from
academics working in this field. We are particularly keen to receive proposals
from PhD students and early career researchers. A short abstract (max. 300
words) and a CV should be sent to the following e-mail address: m.sialaros@bbk.ac.uk by Friday, 20th of
December, 2013. Please notice that the language for abstracts, papers, and
discussions is English.
If you wish to book a place for the conference, please
visit: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/history/about-us/events/revolutions-and-continuity-in-greek-mathematics.
The registration fee for the conference is £45.00 (students: £35.00). It
includes reception meal (for two days) and coffee/tea. Unfortunately, due to
limited space, we will only be able to accept a small number of participants.
Dr Michalis Sialaros
British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Department of History, Classics and Archaeology
Birkbeck College, University of London