Wanderungen des Wissens und Transformationen von Wissensräumen
Diffusion of knowledge and transformations of spaces of knowledge
28-29 April 2022
This international workshop deals with the question how and in what ways knowledge circulated in Eurasia and by which media (texts, pictures, bodies, etc.) and means it was transported (e.g. human mobility, trade, military expeditions, marriage alliances, gifts). This regards both material (technological, practical) and theoretical knowledge (the arts and sciences). An interdisciplinary, transcultural, and epoch-spanning perspective is adopted. An underlying hypothesis is that this may be less of a linear process than previously assumed. The challenge is how to find ways for incorporating different types of evidence (e.g. basically, archeological, ethnographic, written and works of art) in a common framework of comparison. Key topics are “time, time calculation and time perception”, “cultural brokerage and its role for the dissemination of knowledge”, and “routes and spaces”. In addition, a Global Eurasia film about "Violence and Commemorative Cultures" will be shown.
This workshop is part of the thematic platform “Global Eurasia – Comparison and Connectivity”, a joint project of seven institutes of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The next workshop, “Spaces of action, networks and transregional contexts”, will be held on May 12-13, 2022.
Programme | PDF
Thursday, 28 April 2022
09:30-11:30
Welcome and Opening
Prisms of Time: Comparative Approaches to Historiography, Computus and Cosmology in the Global Medieval World
Uta Heil (Universität Wien):
Creative Memories of the Early Synod of Caesarea on the Date of Easter in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. On a New Edition of the Acts
Richard Corradini (IMAFO Wien):
Carolingian Approaches to Time Calculation – Transformation, Innovation and Conflict
Immo Warntjes (Trinity College Dublin):
The Spread of Calendrical Ideas in Early Medieval Europe: from the Periphery to the Carolingian Center
12:00-13:00
Christian Gastgeber (IMAFO Wien):
Byzantine Approaches to Time Calculation – Christianization and Problems of Calculation
Sacha Stern (University College London):
The Origins of the Rabbinic Calendar: Byzantine Cycles and Hellenistic Astronomy
14:30-15:30
Vincent Eltschinger (EPHE Paris) & Veronika Wieser (IMAFO Wien):
Prisms of End Time: Comparative Approaches to Medieval Christian and Buddhist Apocalyptic Thought
16:00-17:00
Global Eurasia Film
„Gewalterfahrungen und Erinnerungskulturen“
Friday, 29 April 2022
09:00-10:30
Agents of Knowledge – Cultural Brokers
Clemens Gantner (IMAFO Wien):
A Delicate Balancing Act. Anastasius the Librarian as Diplomat and Translator between Rome, Pavia and Constantinople
Cinzia Grifoni (IMAFO Wien):
On the Spread of Commented Editions of the Bible in Carolingian Europe: Actors and Paths
Stefan Köck (IKGA Wien):
The Uniqueness of Japan – On Kitabatake Chikafusa’s Synthesis of Contemporary Knowledge and the Spread of the Notion of Japanese Superiority
11:00-12:30
Lidia Negoi (IMAFO Wien):
Language(s) of Identities: Medieval Preachers as Agents of Knowledge Dissemination
Cristina Pecchia (IKGA Wien):
Embodying the Scholarly Persona of the Ayurvedic Tradition: Gangadhar Ray Kaviraj and the Transmission of Ayurveda in Colonial South Asia
Pavlína Rychterová (IMAFO Wien):
Translators as Cultural Brokers: Late Medieval Translators and the Redefinition of Higher Education
14:00-15:00
Routes and Spaces
Angela Schottenhammer (Universität Leuven):
Medizinischer Wissenstransfer zwischen Europa, Neuspanien und Ostasien: Ein Beispiel aus der frühen Neuzeit
Martin Saxer (Universität München):
On Trails and Corridors: Silk Road Fantasies and The Business of Wayfaring in the Pamirs and the Himalayas
15:30-16:30
Randall Law (University of Wisconsin–Madison):
Tracing Agate-carnelian Trade Networks in the Indus Region and Beyond
Carla Meyer-Schlenkrich (Universität Münster):
Unrecognized Transculturality? The Hidden Pathways of Paper from the Islamic Sphere to Latin West in the Middle Ages
16:30-17:00
Final Discussion