Events

2012 Events

We are delighted to announce that the 2012 Crawford Lecture in the History of Astronomy will be delivered by Dr Stephen Pumfrey (Lancaster University).

The lecture is a public lecture and is free but is ticketed. It is on the 8th of May at 5.30pm in the Teviot Lecture Theatre (Teviot Place, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9AG). For directions please see the hyperlinked map.

The event has been generously sponsored by the Science Studies Unit, School of Social and Political Science, the Centre for Renaissance and Medieval Studies, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, and UK Astronomy Technology Centre at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh.

2011 Events

We are very happy to announce this year's Annual Crawford Lecture in the History of Astronomy, which will take place on 6 May 2011, at 5.30pm in the Teviot Lecture Theatre, Teviot Place, Edinburgh EH8 9AG (for directions please see the hyperlinked map on the attached poster).

This year's lecture will be delivered by Prof. Richard Kremer, Darmouth College, and will be entitled "Two God-Fearing Astronomers from Wittenberg, or How Copernicanism Began in 1540".

The event has been kindly sponsored by The School of History, Classics, and Archaeology, The School of Social and Political
Science, and The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

Drinks will be served after the event.

Abstract of this year's lecture:
For more than a century art historians and historians of the Reformation have studied the case of the "three godless artists from
Nuremberg." In 1525, the Nuremberg Council banned three young artists for blasphemy and criticism of the civil authorities. The newly Lutheran minister, Andreas Osiander, led the charge against the artists. In 1540, two young Wittenberg graduates published in Danzig the first Copernican treatises; Copernicus's major word, De revolutionibus, appeared three years later in Nuremberg. The key player in these publications was also Osiander. This lecture will deal with faith and skepticism, obedience and freedom, orthodoxy and heterodoxy in astronomy as well as in religion during the early decades of the Protestant Reformation. It will also examine the labels "godless" and "god-fearing" in these controversies.

[2011 Poster available as a PDF]

2010 Events

Mapping Renaissance Astronomy: People, Places, Problems - Dr Adam Mosley (Swansea University) - 27th of April 2010, 5.30 (Room LT175, Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh) - (download poster (PDF)). We hope to make a podcast of this lecture available after the talk. [Abstract available - PDF] (podcast available)

2009 Events

A series of events have been planned to launch this project. These include:

A three-day workshop. The first Crawford Workshop will be held at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, and at the University of Edinburgh on 7-9 April 2009 (download programme (PDF));
The first Crawford Lecture. This year’s lecture will be given by Professor Robert Westman (University of California, San Diego) and will be entitled: “Copernicus and the Astrological Prognosticators of Cracow and Bologna” ‘(podcast available , download poster (PDF));
An Edinburgh Science Festival Event part of Talking Science. This Lecture will be given jointly by Professors Owen Gingerich (Harvard University) and John Brown (Astronomer Royal for Scotland) on April 10. The title is: ‘Doing Astronomy from Scotland: The Scottish Royal Astronomers and Lord Crawford’s Treasure Trove of Astronomical Books’.

These events have been kindly sponsored by the following institutions: Royal Society of Edinburgh; Royal Astronomical Society and IYA 2009; Knowledge Transfer, The University of Edinburgh; The Moray Endowment Fund, The University of Edinburgh; The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of Edinburgh; and the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh.