Date/Time
Monday
12 Apr 2010
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Location
470 Stephens Hall
Event Type
Colloquium
The paper exemplifies how a few cutting edge ideas of Kepler and Galileo were transmitted by the Jesuits at particular and crucial historical moments. It shows how their teaching strategies were interwoven with a wholeset of cultural practices that supported the messages transmitted not only to their students, but to wider audiences of the urban elites of early modern Europe. Finally, the paper demonstrates how the particular strategies developed by Jesuit teachers and transmitters enabled them to create for themselves and others an Alice in Wonderland kind of world: a world in which one seemed to remain in one place without moving, and at the same time to move forward in an ever growing pace: a world in which the Jesuits declared themselves and indeed remained traditional and attached to pre-modern Aristotelian science, and at the same time were able to transmit cutting edge scientific ideas, values and techniques.
Additional sponsorship comes from: Office for the History of Science and Technology