Mathematical readers in the early modern world

Thursday 18 and Friday 19 December 2014: 10am–5pm All Souls College, Oxford

How was mathematical writing consumed: read, used, responded to, and otherwise engaged with, in the early modern period? What was distinctive about mathematical reading, as against the reading of other kinds of technical writing, or as contrasted with the reading of more general types of prose? Were mathematical books handled or annotated in distinctive ways? Was  mathematical reading associated with a distinctive set of locations? How, where and when did readers learn the (presumptively specialized) skills of mathematical reading? These questions will be the subject of this two-day workshop, to be held in All Souls College, Oxford.

A limited number of places are available for observers. The cost will be £20, and will cover attendance at the conference sessions, with tea and coffee. Unfortunately accommodation cannot be provided for observers.

To reserve a place, or for any enquiries, please contact benjamin.wardhaugh@all-souls.ox.ac.uk

Programme

Reading and collecting; readers and libraries

        Richard Oosterhoff, Cambridge: "'With diligent studie, but sportingly': Harvey's reading of Sacrobosco’s Sphere".

        Lisa Hillier: "'Reading Continually the Great and Ancient Authors': The Mathematical Library of Carlo Carracci".

        Andrew Campbell, UCL: "Substituting Expedience for Knowledge: A Carmelite Reader of Algebra Texts in Early Modern Italy".

        Kathryn James, Yale: "Burghley as Mathematical Reader"

        Louisiane Ferlier, UCL: "John Wallis and readers of the Bodleian library: leading to mathematical truths, asserting religious truth?"

        Yelda Nasifoglu, McGill: "Robert Hooke as mathematical collector, reader, and annotator"

Reading and using; writing and rewriting

        Matthew Landrus, Oxford: "The use of Euclid in early sixteenth century Europe"

        Joe Jarrett, Cambridge: "From Page to Stage: Mathematics and Early Modern English Drama".

        Renée Raphael, California, Irvine: "Reading mathematics in the seventeenth century:  An overview of practices focusing on annotated copies of Galileo’s 1638 Discorsi".

        Boris Jardine, Cambridge: "The uses of mathematical instrument manuals".

        Benjamin Wardhaugh, Oxford: "'The Admonitions of a good-natured Reader': how Georgians read mathematics".

        Nerida Ellerton, Illinois: "The Cyphering Tradition and Intended and Implemented Curricula in eighteenth- and nineteenth-Century School Mathematics in North America and Great Britain"

        Ken Clements, Illinois: "Differences between British and North American Cyphering Books in the 18th and 19th Centuries"