BAROQUE IMAGINARY:

THE WORLD OF ATHANASIUS KIRCHER, S. J. (1602-80)

April 27-28, 2001

Stanford University

Directions and Parking Map

 

Friday, April 27, Bender Room, 5th floor, Green Library West

 

9:00 Welcome by Assunta Pisani, Stanford University Libraries

and Paula Findlen, History Department, Stanford University

 

9:30-11:30 Session I: The Mysteries of Man and the Cosmos

(Chair, Henry Lowood, Stanford University Libraries)

Ingrid Rowland (Getty Research Institute/American Academy in Rome), "Athanasius Kircher, Giordano Bruno, and Atomic Panspermia"

Daniel Stolzenberg (Stanford University), "Sometimes Beneath a Shining Angel: Kircher Among the Kabbalists"

Martha Baldwin (Stonehill College), "Reveries in Time of Plague: Kircher and the Plague Epidemic of 1656"

 

11:30-12:45 Lunch Break

 

12:45-2:45 Session II: The Global Shape of Knowledge

(Chair, Jorge Canizares Esguerra, SUNY Buffalo)

Carlos Ziller Camenietzki (Museum of Astronomy, Rio de Janiero), "La science baroque entre l'ancien et le nouveau monde: père Kircher et son confrère Valentin Stansel (1621-1705)"

Michael John Gorman (Stanford University), "Correspondence Networks and the Reform of Natural Knowledge: Athanasius Kircher's Geographical Project"

Noel Malcolm (Independent Scholar, London), "Private and Public Knowledge: Kircher, Esotericism and the Republic of Letters"

 

2:45-3:00 Coffee Break

 

3:00-5:00 Session III: The Sciences of Erudition

(Chair, Mary Terrall, UCLA)

Paula Findlen (Stanford University), "Reading Kircher"

Anthony Grafton (Princeton University), "Kircher and Chronology"

Peter Miller (University of Maryland, College Park), "Kircher, Peiresc and the Foundation of Coptic Studies. Or, The Quest for Barachias Nephi"

 

5:00-6:30 Reception in the Bender Room, Green Library

 

 

Saturday, April 28, Bender Room, Green Library

 

9:00-10:15 Session IV: Communicating Knowledge

(Chair, Federico Luisetti, CUNY)

Nick Wilding (Stanford University), "The Gift of Language: Athanasius Kircher's Polygraphy and Pentacostal Patronage"

Michelle Molina (University of Chicago), "True Lies: Kircher's China Illustrata and the Life Story of a Mexican Mystic"

 

10:15-10:45 Musical Interlude: Composing Kircher

Peter Pannke (Berlin), "Itinerarium Kircherianum: An Acoustical Homage to Athanasius Kircher" (selected and produced for the Prix Ars Acoustica of the Studio for Acoustic Art/WDR Cologne)

 

10:45-11:15 Coffee Break

 

11:15-12:15 Session V: Digital Kircher

(Chair, Glen Worthey, Stanford University Libraries)

The Athanasius Kircher Correspondence Project (Michael John Gorman and Nick Wilding)

 

12:15-1:30 Lunch

 

1:30-3:30 Session VI: The Art and Science of Kircher

(Chair, Pamela Smith, Pomona College)

Angela Mayer-Deutsch (University of Frankfurt am Main), "Kircherian Visual Imagery: Iconography and Patronage Strategies"

Steven Jay Gould (Harvard University), "Kircher's Misunderstood and Ecumenical Paleontology"

Barbara Stafford (University of Chicago), "Leibniz's Cosmology: Reflections in a Kircherian Mirror"

 

3:30-4:00 Coffee Break

 

4:00-5:30 Session VII: Reconstructing Kircher's Museum

(Chair, Robert Batchelor, Stanford University)

Eugenio Lo Sardo (Ispettore Generale, Archivi di Stato, Rome)

David Wilson (Museum of Jurassic Technology)

 

This conference gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Dean of Humanities and Sciences, Dean of Research, Science, Technology and Society Program, History Department, Program in the History and Philosophy of Science, and Stanford University Libraries.