ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Visualization and Material Cultures of the Heavens across Eurasia

Session Submission Type: Organized Session

English Abstract

This session, organized by members and associates of the Heavens in Your Hand working group at the Max Planck Institute, presents new explorations in the study of celestial visualization and the material cultures of astronomy across Eurasia. By examining astronomical images and artifacts, such as star maps, sundials, celestial globes and illustrated manuscripts, if offers a comparative perspective on the engagement with visual media of astral knowledge in East Asia, the Islamicate world and Europe across a wide span of historical time. It also showcases how various Eurasian traditions of astral sciences were interconnected by the flow and appropriation of material objects and visual formats.

Sub Unit

• Organized Session

Chair

• Jeffrey Kotyk, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

Individual Presentations

• Chinese Cosmologies in a Scaphe Sundial: New Instruments of Visualization in the Mongol-Yuan Dynasty - Jinsong Guo, Peking University

• Materiality and Knowledge in Edo-Period Celestial Globes - Chloe Pare-Anastasiadou

• 360 Degrees of the Sky: One Astral Representation per Day - Aida Alavi, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

• Between Observation and Omen: Reconstructing the Historical Context of Medieval Chinese Star Maps - Boshun Yang, University of Science and Technology of China

Session Organizer

• Boshun Yang, University of Science and Technology of China