CALL FOR PAPERS: Research workshop: Mathematical readers in the early modern world

Thursday 18 and Friday 19 December 2014
All Souls College, Oxford

How was mathematical writing consumed – read, used, responded to, and otherwise engaged with – in the early modern period? What was distinctive about mathematical reading, compared with the reading of other kinds of technical writing, or with the reading of prose more generally? Were mathematical books handled or annotated in distinctive ways? Was mathematical reading associated with a distinctive set of locations? How, where and when did readers learn the (presumptively specialized) skills of mathematical reading? These questions will be the subject of this two-day workshop, to be held in All Souls College, Oxford.

Confirmed speakers:
Ken Clements, Illinois State University
Nerida Ellerton, Illinois State University
Kathryn James, Yale University
Yelda Nasifoglu, McGill University
Benjamin Wardhaugh, University of Oxford

Proposals for papers are invited on all aspects of reading and consuming mathematics in the early modern world. Proposals should include an abstract of no more than 250 words and a brief CV, and should be emailed to benjamin.wardhaugh@all-souls.ox.ac.uk by 1 September 2014. The conference can contribute to travel costs for speakers.