Project description
Teaching cosmology in early Byzantium schools
What were the teaching and learning practices of cosmology and elementary astronomy in early Byzantium? The EU-funded COSMOPOET project aims to explore the relationship between poetry and astronomy while investigating the methods employed to explain the cosmos through literary means in Byzantine schools at the higher educational level. The project will conduct a comparative study of the didactic poem Phaenomena by the Greek poet Aratus of Soli (d. before 239 BCE) and the transmission of the introductory astronomical treatise The Heavens by the Greek astronomer Cleomedes (first century CE). These two texts gained increasing popularity from the late 13th century onwards. Both texts serve as introductory material for readers and students, providing insights into elementary cosmology and astronomy.
Objective
"COSMOPOET aims to rethink the relationship between poetry and astronomy and ultimately, it investigates medieval Greek solutions to the question as to how to explain the cosmos through literary means. This is a project about the interaction of science and literature and about interpreting scientific literature as literature in the context of the intellectual space of the Byzantine schools and the multiple curricula coexisting at the higher educational level. COSMOPOET studies the medieval Greek and early modern manuscript tradition of the didactic poem ""Phaenomena"" by Aratus of Soli (d. before 239 BCE) and compares it to transmission of the introductory astronomical treatise ""The Heavens"" by Cleomedes (first century CE). Both texts introduce the reader-student to elementary cosmology and astronomy and prompted the production of commentaries of textual and of diagrammatic nature, as their popularity in Byzantium increased from the late thirteenth century onwards. COSMOPOET studies 1) the textual dimension of both discourses (especially the didactic use of formal literary features such as verse and rhythm); 2) their respective graphic features (e.g. layout and diagrams); 3) the associated paratexts (e.g. epigrams, scholia, marginal and interlinear annotations) and 4) standalone commentaries, and 5) how they change as evidenced in manuscripts copied from the tenth to the sixteenth century. Thus, COSMOPOET formulates and tests the hypothesis that the examination of both paratexts and graphic features of scientific discourse, and of their respective variations through time can answer questions concerning the practices of teaching and learning cosmology and elementary astronomy in Byzantine advanced education."
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
9000 Gent
Belgium