IMC 2017: Sessions

Session 1541: Science at Court, I: Poesis

Organiser:	Tekla Bude, School of Writing, Literature & Film, Oregon State University
Moderator/Chair:	Sophie Serra, Centre Pierre Abélard, Université Paris IV - Sorbonne
Paper 1541-a	Rhetorics of Risk: Court Poetry and Insurance (Language: English) Tekla Bude, School of Writing, Literature & Film, Oregon State University Index terms: Economics - General, Language and Literature - Middle English, Science
Paper 1541-b	Computus at Court: Rauf de Lenham's Kalender (1256) and the Transmission of Technical Knowledge (Language: English) Edward Mills, Department of Modern Languages, University of Exeter Index terms: Education, Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Science
Abstract	From the anonymous Middle English Court of Sapience to Nicole Oresme's Livre du ciel et du monde to the lavishly illustrated copies of Pliny's Natural History produced for the Visconti family, medieval scientific discourse was often inflected by - and constructed around - literary, musical, and artistic forms present at court. The two 'Science at Court' sessions invite abstracts on what it means to 'do science at court' in the late medieval period, particularly in the context of literature, music, and the arts. Session one asks how didactic poems or works of counsel, conduct, and governance blur the boundaries between science, mimesis, and the work of court politics.