Techniques of Prediction I: Chronomancy
May 07-08, 2013
Convenor: Prof. Dr. Michael Lackner, Prof. Dr. Andrea Bréard
Our workshop series’ focus is upon techniques of inductive or highly
rationalized divination, modes of divination that do not depend entirely (or not at
all) on inspired or visionary experience, but on a mental activity of the diviner
with an established set, a logic of symbols or a code often formalized in the form
of manuals, lists, tables or diagrams. We wish to explore the complexities of
operations involved in the organization and production of predictions, constituted
of symbolic, logical, formal and instrumental instants.
Chronomancy - the Science of the Right Time
In a first session, we want to bring
into a dialogue specialists working on chronomantic techniques in different cultural
realms. While encouraging a comparative approach, our aim is not to uncover
universal epistemic values, but instead to proceed experimentally by particular case
studies of divinatory techniques based on the quantification or manipulation of
time. Confronting similar cases from different cultural realms will destabilize the
taken-for-granted singularity and the supposed exceptional character of divinatory
practices in a specific historical setting and cultural framework. It invites to
rethink together the technical, intellectual and material aspects and the traces
that illuminate chronomantic practices (including astrological calculations in
hemerology), their agents and their rational modes of knowledge production to
determine auspicious and inauspicious moments for certain categories of human
activities
Programme
Tuesday, May 7, 2013, 1:00 pm - 6:30 pm
| 1:00 p.m | Introduction (Michael Lackner, Director; Andrea Bréard, Univ. Heidelberg, Univ. Lille 1, IKGF Former Visiting Fellow) |
| 1:30 p.m. | Ephemerides and Evaluations
of Days in Later Greco-Roman Astrology Alexander Jones (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University) |
| 3:00 p.m. | Coffee Break |
| 3:30 p.m. | Foundation Horoscopes from
Greco-Roman Antiquity to the Renaissance Stephan Heilen (Universität Osnabrück) |
| 5:00 p.m. | Chronomancy in Medieval Europe:
the Latin Corpus before the Arabs David Juste (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften) |
Wednesday, May 8, 2013, 9:30 am - 1:00 pm
| 9:30 a.m | Correlating Time and Space:
the Role of Temporal Parameters in Japanese
Arithmomancy and Hemerology Matthias Hayek (CRCAO, Université Paris Diderot) |
| 11:00 a.m | Chronocrator Systems in
Perso-Indian Annual Horoscopy Martin Gansten (Lund University) |
| 12:30 p.m. | Discussion |
| 1:00 p.m. | Lunch Break |
Location
Senatssaal Schloss
Schlossplatz 4, 91054 Erlangen
Contact
For more information, please contact Esther-Maria Guggenmos at Esther-Maria.Guggenmos@ikgf.uni-erlangen.de.