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From Inscription to Description: Geometry and Textuality in Johannes Kepler’s Mysterium Cosmographicum

Fri, April 1, 1:30 to 3:00pm, Hynes Convention Center, Floor: Level Three, 304

Abstract

Johannes Kepler’s Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596) presents itself as an allegorical interpretation of the symbolic cosmic Book, demonstrating that planetary motion fits neatly within a static geometrical structure “inscribed” by a divine author. Few scholars have noticed, then, that the text works to collapse this hermeneutics. It suggests that the sun’s motive force “describes” the eccentric orbits of the planets; and concludes by theorizing that these mathematically irrational shapes indicate a geometric composition that changes over time. That is, the cosmos is not a book of transcendentally imprinted symbols but an aleatory text that writes itself immanently. Kepler’s text invokes symbolic geometry and allegorical cosmology, I argue, only in order to demonstrate that textual representation cannot contain cosmic temporality. This tension manifests as a critique of the way in which cosmological authority and perhaps even God’s Word itself claims textual control over the nature of time.

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