Early Modern Visual Data:
Organizing Knowledge in Printed Books
44th International Wolfenbüttel Summer Course
August 3-14, 2020
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel
Application Deadline: March 15, 2020
CRS encourages those who are interested to submit an application for the 44th International Wolfenbüttel Summer Course, “Early Modern Visual Data: Organizing Knowledge in Printed Books,” which will be held August 3-14, 2020, at the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel.The seminar convener is Stephanie Leitch (Florida State University).
This course will explore printed images as critical visual technology that built knowledge acquisition. In this seminar, we will inspect the kindred function of images across diverse and seemingly disparate texts. We will ask to what extent images provided the mortar between different modes of empirical investigation, and how early modern visual data functioned. This course will examine how images helped to sift, filter, and process new information and the visual formats they used to render it. While the development of linear perspective and the rehabilitation of antiquity have held down the cornerstones of Renaissance visuality, we will examine some of the frameworks and imperatives of visualization that were active in early modern knowledge making, especially ones that took the printed page as their canvas.
The Summer Course is addressed to masters and doctoral students and will be conducted in English. Mornings will be devoted to presentations by the participants and to workshops led by senior scholars in the field. Key readings (in English and German) will be circulated in advance. In the afternoons, participants will be able to use the holdings of the Herzog August Bibliothek for their own work and will have opportunities to hold individual or group discussions with those teaching the course. The library offers up to fifteen places for participants and will cover their expenses for accommodation and breakfast. Each participant will receive a subsidy of 100 Euros to cover living costs. Participants are expected to pay their own travel expenses.
To apply, applicants should send an email to [email protected] that includes the following: a statement of their reasons for wishing to participate in the course, a CV that describes their academic career and their current research, and the address of an academic referee who may be contacted to provide a reference if needed. The deadline is 15 March 2020.
