Cultures of Knowledge: An Intellectual Geography of the Seventeenth-Century Republic of Letters

Further to this post, Dr William Poole‘s correspondence-related lectures at the Museum of the History of Science and the Oxford Bibliographical Society last month have now been published online. ‘The Chinaman and the Librarian: The Meeting of Shen Fuzong and Thomas Hyde in 1687′ is available in full-text on ORA, while ‘Oxford and the Royal Society in the Seventeenth Century’ is available as a podcast on the MHS website.

Detail from 'Portrait of John Wallis', by Godfrey Kneller. 1701. Oil on canvas, overall dimensions 23.8 by 144.8cm. (The Examination Schools, University of Oxford)

A roundtable symposium on ‘John Wallis as Correspondent and Controversialist’ will take place at Jesus College of the University of Oxford on 12–14 April 2010. Several leading authorities on the seventeenth-century mathematician will explore his multiple roles as correspondent, editor, cryptographer, and controversialist, as well as his relationship with his contemporaries, and the programme will also feature a guided tour of the University Archives (of which Wallis was keeper). Auditors are welcome. The symposium is the concluding event of the AHRC-funded Wallis Project (from late 2010, the editing of Wallis’s correspondence will form a sub-project of Cultures of Knowledge). A programme can be downloaded here (pdf). For further information, please contact Dr David Cram at david.cram@jesus.ox.ac.uk.

Exploring Early Chinese Correspondences

Dr William Poole, a member of the English Faculty and New College and one of our John Aubrey researchers, is scheduled to give two lectures relevant to the Project in Oxford in the coming fortnight. The first, which will take place at the Taylor Institution under the auspices of the Oxford Bibliographical Society on Monday 1 March at 5.15pm, will explore the earliest surviving English-Chinese correspondence, which dates from 1687-88 (see the poster on the right). The second, which will take place at the Museum of the History of Science on Tuesday 9 March at 7pm, will explore the relationship between Oxford and the Royal Society in the seventeenth century, and forms part of the Museum’s year-long season of activities marking the 350th anniversary of the Society. For further details, see the MHS website. Update: these lectures are now online.