Vision and Knowledge in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries |
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A conference at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library |
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Friday |
“To see is to know”, wrote Aristotle. Even today, “I see” can mean “I understand.” Aristotle understood the connection between sight and knowledge to be physical, however. Before the seventeenth century, the eye was believed to be connected directly to the spirit: an impression of objects seen were understood as physically impressed upon the soul. Sight was, therefore, both the most powerful and the most dangerous of senses. Its perceived power lay behind the explosion of image creation in a wide variety of forms and media in the early modern period; and its perceived danger lay behind the iconoclastic fury of the Protestants who destroyed images in Catholic churches in the Low Countries in 1566. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe, in a paradigm shift sometimes referred to by the much discussed term the “Scientific Revolution,” a space was opened between vision and the soul, with new attention to the imperfect ocular apparatus, and such voluntary activities as reflection and reason, articulated memorably by Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.” Empirical experience, enhanced by the invention of such optical devices as the microscope and telescope, took on new meaning, which in turn had a dramatic impact upon beliefs about the nature of images, their function in knowledge production, and the role of makers in their creation. Since Aristotle, these understandings were—as they continue to be—highly gendered: woman’s imagination and uncontrollable passions were set against man’s reason. Changed understandings of sight and reason, then, produced new understandings of the material world and thereby of the status and role of images in knowledge production. This conference investigates this moment so crucial to our modern world view through the perspectives of historians of art, of science, and of material culture, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Our participants examine contemporaneous understandings of sight, and the resulting epistemological status and function of images in producing knowledge, from optics and the practice of fine art, its display, religion, to diagrams and natural history, architecture, travel illustration, colonialism, revolution, and the telegraph. |
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Registration Deadline: October 7, 2011 Please click here for a printable registration form. Registration Fees: $20 per person; UC faculty & staff, students with ID: no charge* All students, UC faculty and staff may register via e-mail by sending their name, affiliation and phone number to c1718cs@humnet.ucla.edu *Students should be prepared to provide their current University ID at the conference. Complimentary lunch and other refreshments are provided to all registrants. Please be aware that space at the Clark is limited and that registration closes when capacity is reached. Confirmation will be sent via email. |
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Friday, |
Program Schedule: |
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9:30 a.m. |
Morning coffee |
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10:00 a.m. |
Barbara Fuchs, UCLA Session I: Religious and Scientific Dimensions of Vision Stuart Clark, University of Wales, Swansea Jeanette Favrot Peterson, University of California, Santa Barbara Lyle Massey, University of California, Irvine |
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1:00 p.m. |
Lunch |
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2:00 p.m. |
Session II: Vision and Representation Ann Jensen Adams, University of California, Santa Barbara Alexander Marr, University of Southern California Erica Naginski, Harvard University |
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5:00 p.m. |
Reception |
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Saturday, |
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9:30 a.m. |
Morning Coffee |
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10:00 a.m. |
Session III: Vision, the Body, and Experience Elmer Kolfin, University of Amsterdam Bronwen Wilson, University of British Columbia Annemieke Hoogenboom, Utrecht University |
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1:00 p.m. |
Lunch |
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2.00 p.m. |
Session IV: Vision and the Political Lynn Hunt, University of California, Los Angeles Richard Taws, University College, London |
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