A CFP for a graduate conference on Ancient Science at Johns Hopkins University, organized by John Liao and Keisuke Nakajima (JHU).

Much of our knowledge of ancient science – an activity characterized by processes such as ‘collection, prediction, and causal explanation’ (Jones and Taub 2018) – comes from surviving texts. It is therefore from the ‘page’ (or the tablet or book-roll), largely, that we determine the contours of what we call ‘science’ in antiquity. But can we move beyond the page to develop a more nuanced understanding of ancient science?

Who, for example, shared in the formulating of scientific ideas and theories? Can we get at the minds and bodies that lie hidden behind the great names? What messy practices, interactions or failures might lurk beneath the theory on the page, or around the margins of that page? What are the physical spaces in which scientific thought was developed and disseminated; are these spaces inert backgrounds, or did they play a more active role in shaping ideas? Can we hope to capture some of the ‘thingness’ of ancient scientific thought and practices, esp. through attention to the material objects, substances and media involved? How, ultimately, might a more sensitive awareness of the world of ancient science beyond the page complicate our understanding of the texts – and of science today? We invite papers that disrupt and/or expand upon a theory- and author-centric conceptualization of science in the ancient world. And we warmly welcome approaches from cultural traditions in addition to the Greek and Roman.

Keynote speakers: Prof. Claire Bubb (NYU); Dr Monika Amsler (Bern)

Suggestive topics (not exhaustive) include:

1) the physical production-sites of ancient science: ‘laboratories’, quarries, libraries, scribal schools, workshops, kitchens, observatories, classrooms;

2) the hidden labour involved in scientific inquiry;

3) the role of non-human resources in scientific practice, whether inorganic (e.g. minerals) or organic (plants, animals);

4) the role of the body, senses and emotions in the practice of science;

5) how scientific thought was shaped by its different media of communication (e.g. text, art, orality, scientific tools and artefacts);

6) transformations of scientific ideas beyond elite contexts of learning, e.g. among socially or intellectually marginalized communities;

7) modern approaches to ancient science that are ‘off the page’ – e.g. how might experimental reconstructions flesh out our understanding of science in the ancient world?

8) what pressures might be exerted on the development of scientific ideas by economic or political agendas; and how, in turn, might the transfer or exchange of knowledge in and among ancient cultures be understood in terms of the ancient economy?

9) how does a more nuanced understanding of the unwritten world of ancient science enhance our own critical response to scientific endeavour in our own society today?

Anonymous abstracts of 300-500 words should be submitted to [email protected] in clear PDF format no later than 1st December 2024. Papers should not exceed 20 minutes in length. Please include your name, institutional affiliation, and the title of your paper in the body of your email.

Questions may be addressed to the conference organizers Keisuke Nakajima and John Liao at [email protected]

Refs: [Jones, A. and Taub, L. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Science, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.]