Scientific poetry and poetics in Britain and Germany, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (1580-1750)

Posted on 11 December 2023

This AHRC-DFG funded project will run from 2024-2027.

Planisphæri cœleste. Image credit: Wikimedia, Creative Commons

It explores a mass of natural philosophical poetry from the period, with the aim of bringing unknown texts to light and showing how poetic writing was central to the practice and communication of scientific knowledge.

A key understanding of the project is that poetry not only developed new natural philosophical theories, but poetic writing produced new structures, forms and vocabularies through which to think through scientific ideas.

The project will uncover a large corpus of early modern scientific poetry in English, German and Neo-Latin, opening up hitherto unstudied Anglo-German perspectives on the European res publica litteraria.

It involves a collaboration between several universities and researchers, led by Cassie Gorman (Anglia Ruskin), Kevin Killeen (York), Florian Klaeger (Bayreuth) and Hania Siebenpfeiffer (Marburg).

The project website will launch in Spring 2024. We will, in advance of this, be seeking PhD studentships (Bayreuth and Marburg) and postdoctoral positions (Anglia Ruskin and York).

Enquiries about the project can be addressed to: kevin.killeen@york.ac.uk

Learn more about the AHRC-DFG awards

Vacancies

The project website will launch in Spring 2024.

We will, in advance of this, be seeking PhD studentships (Bayreuth and Marburg) and postdoctoral positions (Anglia Ruskin and York).

The University of York is appointing a Postdoctoral Research Associate' to work on the project (22 months) - deadline 16 April 2024

Learn more and apply