Index - Aktuelles
DFG-Paketgruppe
GESELLSCHAFTLICHE INNOVATION DURCH
'NICHTHEGEMONIALE' WISSENSPRODUKTION
'Okkulte' Phänomene zwischen Mediengeschichte, Kulturtransfer und Wissenschaft, 1770 bis 1970
Looking Through the Occult.
Instrumentation, Esotericism, and Epistemology in 19th Century
A Fall 2013 International Conference Organized by the German Research Foundation's “Nonhegemonic Knowledge“ Network
In recent years the history of science has cast new light on how technical instrumentation in the nineteenth-century shaped conceptions of scientific objectivity as non-subjective and independent of human intervention. A parallel body of research in media studies has demonstrated how the contemporaneous rise of technical media (e.g. telegraphy, photography) informed spiritualistic beliefs that automated, technical inscriptions would provide faithful representation of a transcendental or spiritualistic world.
From November 14-16, 2013 the German Research Foundation's “Nonhegemonic Knowledge“ research network will convene an international conference entitled “Looking Through the Occult” that brings together scholars in media studies, the history of knowledge and science, and religious studies to consider how these two phenomena may interrelate. We are especially interested in questions such as: How did occult and spiritualistic beliefs in automatic writing relate to the scientific belief in “self-recording” instruments as a path towards an objectivity unperturbed by human intervention? Might the neglected intersections between scientific and esoteric styles of reasoning provide the outlines of non-modern ontologies and epistemologies that recast our understanding of media, science, and technical innovation in the present day? In our effort to identify a medial or technological a priori that underpinned scientific and spiritualistic understanding, we will be especially interested in understanding how visual, graphical, and instrumental modes representation intertwined forms of scientific and occult knowledge.