Chaldea

Call for Applications

Summer School: Sceptical Strategies, Methods, and Approaches in the Middle Ages: Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Traditions

July 29–August 3, 2018, Hamburg/Germany

Application Deadline: January 31, 2018

Excerpt from the European Association for Jewish Studies web site:

In the second Summer School we will focus on major sceptic concepts, strategies and key terms in medieval Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin literature. Participants and instructors will focus on sceptical and anti-sceptical enquiry of concepts of truth and knowledge as well as sceptical methods of doubting and arguing. The Summer School will offer a unique platform to discuss the tension between philosophy and faith, and between reason and revelation within medieval discourses. Participants will be engaged with primary Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic texts. The aim is to provide participants with the tools to examine scepticism and anti-scepticism within Christian, Islamic, and Jewish contexts in relation to attaining true knowledge.

For more information, or if you have questions, please contact:

Maria Wazinski, e-mail: maria.wazinski@uni-hamburg.de, phone: +49-(0)40-42838-8605

The following conference announcement was recently uploaded here, part of which is pasted below for readers’ convenience.

SEAC 26, Graz (Austria), August 27 – September 1, 2018
Harmony and symmetry: Celestial regularities shaping human cultures

First Announcement
Scientific Rationale

Culture is impossible without structure, and structure means regularity, the repetition of similar units of social behaviour. Astronomy as the oldest of natural sciences was always strongly connected with these regularities in human societies. Astronomical observations were important for temporal and spatial structuring daily life, providing orientation in a purely practical, but also in its spiritual meaning, thus connecting natural phenomena with astrological and religious interpretations of the world. The celestial sphere, regarded as the sky of astronomy and meteorology, as well as the heaven of divine numina, from the early times of Anaximander and Pythagoras till Copernicus and Kepler was equated with symmetry, harmony, and beauty. Till today this has been reflected in the structure of cultural creations, from architectural objects to musical forms. This broad conception of Astronomy in Culture will form the basis of the conference.