Creating and Communicating a Worldview: Diagrammatic and Theoretical Accounts of the Cosmos in Palaiologan Byzantium, University of Vienna, October 10, 2018, 5:00–6:30 pm
The Wittgenstein Project Team invites you to our fourteenth group discussion meeting. “Forum Moving Byzantium XIV” will take place on Thursday 04.10.2018, from 17:00 to 18:30, at the Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies (University of Vienna, Postgasse 7, 1010 Vienna, Staircase 1, Third Floor, Hörsaal).
The Forum Moving Byzantium XIV will provide the unique opportunity to discuss with Dr. Divna Manolova (University of Silesia in Katowice) her current work on “Creating and Communicating a Worldview: Diagrammatic and Theoretical Accounts of the Cosmos in Palaiologan Byzantium”.
Divna Manolova is currently the Principal Investigator of a project on polymathy and intellectual curiosity in late Byzantium funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie/POLONEZ 1 grant. As of November 2018, she will be a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Medieval Literature (University of Southern Denmark and University of York). Her research deals with Byzantine intellectual history, in particular, with the history of Byzantine science and philosophy. Most recently, she has embarked on the history of emotions and on the cognitive function of cosmological diagrams in medieval Greek manuscripts.
After a brief introduction in English, a group discussion based on preparatory readings will follow.
Some of the questions that will be put forward for discussion are:
- What is the cognitive role of the cosmological/cosmographical diagrams in the process of knowledge formation and how is it employed for didactic purposes?
- Where is cosmological knowledge placed within the “canon” of late Byzantine education? What is its value and use?
- Finally, in relation to the optional reading, I am seeking feedback as to the idea that acquiring knowledge concerning the cosmos could be viewed as both a cognitive and an affective experience, in particular, regarding emotions such as wonder and curiosity.
RSVP requested.