CONFERENCE: The Crisis of the Traditional Structure of Knowledge: Teaching and Learning Mathematical Sciences in the long 18th Century
VENICE, Ca' Foscari University; 21-22 June 2023.
Organizers: Davide Crippa (Ca' Foscari University of Venice), Marco Sgarbi (Ca' Foscari University of Venice).
Deadline for submissions: 28 March 2023
In addition to the invited speakers, there are a few slots reserved for scholars presenting work that, broadly speaking, is in line with the goal of the workshop. Abstracts should not exceed 250 words, and should be written in English (conference language).
Please send your submission and inquiries to Davide Crippa.
CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION
Even though historians agree that physical and mathematical sciences became academic disciplines from the early 19th century, it was during the previous century that these sciences moved to the center of European culture. A veritable "revolution in science teaching," as L. Brockliss put it ("Science, the Universities, and Other Public Spaces: Teaching Science in Europe and the Americas", in R. Porter, The Cambridge History of Science, vol. 4), took place in the 18th century and changed the content of the curricula in the philosophical faculties by bringing new subjects into university education such as experimental philosophy, mathematical physics, chemistry, and mining and renegotiating the traditional boundaries between natural philosophy, logic, mathematics, and medicine. This process was multifaceted, as the two spheres in which teaching occurred—the public spaces of universities and academies and the space of private tutoring and exchanges— were often superimposed, creating a mosaic of cases whose investigation is still ongoing. In this process, moreover, university teachers and scholars, public and private instructors and students, practitioners, and amateurs played, alongside "great thinkers," an active role not only in prompting the circulation of new ideas in natural philosophy and mathematics but also in framing new ways of knowing and in modifying the content of the transmitted knowledge.
In this conference, we intend to chart the crisis of the traditional structure of knowledge and the emergence of new disciplines during the long 18th century (by this expression we intend, broadly speaking, a period between the second half of the 17th century and the turn of the 19th century). We aim to tackle this issue from various angles and starting from different questions, such as the following: How were new mathematical theories, such as calculus analysis and geometry transmitted and learned in the European context and beyond? How did Newtonianism and Wolffianism integrate or supplant academic teaching of Aristotelian and Cartesian physics at various universities? What role did private teaching of mathematical sciences play and how can their audiences be characterized? What were the concrete teaching practices and their related sources (textbooks, notes, and examinations)? What was the role of religious orders, such as the Jesuits, in circulation or the suppression of new ideas in physics and mathematics? How was physical and mathematical knowledge built through interactions between "centers" and "peripheries"?
INVITED SPEAKERS
Vincenzo De Risi (CNRS-SPHere, Université Paris Cité; MPIWG, Berlin)
Brendan Dooley (University College Cork)
Steffen Ducheyne (Vrije Universiteit, Brussels)
Sofia Talas (Università degli Studi di Padova)