ORGANIZERS:

Yossi Chajes (University of Haifa)
Katrin Kogman-Appel (University of Münster)
Marcia Kupfer (independent scholar)
Andrea Worm (Karl Franzens University, Graz)

 

The reunion conference for the Research Group The Visualization of Knowledge in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods will explore the production of visual models as cognitive mechanisms integral to thought. It will address the invention and use of various devices that depend on the reciprocal interaction between mental imaging and strategies of textual and graphic mediation. Patterned text, lists, tables, diagrams, schemata, charts, and maps do not merely compile and communicate information, but also have a generative power: they formalize abstract concepts, provide grids through which to process data, set in motion analytic operations that give rise to new ideas, and create interpretive frameworks for understanding the world.

The main outcome of the Research Group's project and conference will be a collective volume which will address these issues and others.