ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Materiality and Knowledge in Edo-Period Celestial Globes

• In Event: Visualization and Material Cultures of the Heavens across Eurasia

English Abstract

This paper examines Edo-period celestial globes, such as those located at the Tokyo National Museum of Nature and Science, as artifacts where material processes and astronomical knowledge are interconnected. The globes' inscriptions indicate the assemblage of Chinese astronomical systems, Dutch rangaku, and locally observed stellar data. The materialities of these objects, constructed with papier-mâché, embed the same trade and knowledge routes that inform the astronomical inscriptions. With the two-fold analysis of fabrication and written text, this paper demonstrates the indivisibility of the history of science from its material processes. Through the examination of the celestial globes, this presentation foregrounds a microhistory of Japanese astronomy and highlights the affinities of written and material histories, ones that are trans-regional and localised.

Author

• Chloe Pare-Anastasiadou