CALL FOR PAPERS: Science, Imagination and Wonder: Robert Grosseteste and His Legacy

The Ordered Universe Research Project in association with the International Grosseteste Society

Conference: 3-6 April, 2018, Pembroke College, University of Oxford
Website: Ordered Universe

Papers are invited (for oral or poster presentation) for this conference organised by the Ordered Universe Research Project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK, and the International Grosseteste Society. An interdisciplinary project bringing together medieval specialists and modern scientists, the Ordered Universe project is dedicated to new editions and translation of the scientific works of Robert Grosseteste. The conference will be the Fourth International Grosseteste Conference.

The conference will celebrate the life and works of Grosseteste, especially in their response to natural phenomena. A principal aim of the conference is a confluence of disciplinary perspectives on this remarkable thinker. Submissions are welcome from all disciplines and from all career stages. Some suggested areas for subjects are listed below, but please be in touch with the organising committee to run ideas past us:
  • the legacy of Grosseteste’s thought in the later Middle Ages and beyond
  • Grosseteste’s predecessors and contemporaries
  • textual and editorial issues connected to medieval science
  • inter-textual issues across Grosseteste’s writings: pastoral, theological, scientific and literary
  • rendering medieval thought in images, diagrams and visualisation
  • the extended legacy of the themes Grosseteste raises:
    • the order inherent in creation
    • questions of morality and science
    • definitions of experience, experiment
    • attitudes towards authorities
    • education and pedagogic practice
  • relevant thematic issues in history of science and literature
  • modern scientific inspiration from medieval thinkers
  • the role of wonder and imagination in science, in the medieval and modern periods

Oral presentations should be of 20 minute length, and the organising committee will also consider applications for sessions of 3-4 papers with potential speakers identified. Posters should be in A0 portrait format (33.1 wide x 46.8 length in inches), to be displayed throughout the conference and at dedicated Poster Sessions where presenters will be available to discuss their work). In all cases please submit a 300 word abstract with a brief academic biography to: Ordered Universe

The closing date for paper or session submission titles will be 1st February 2018, but the earlier the better! Abstracts will be appraised and a decision made on a rolling basis upon submission.

Full details of the conference costs and booking arrangements will be published on the Ordered Universe website in due course. It is anticipated that arrangements will be made for publications from presentations but decisions will be made after the conference.