Description
This workshop will explore the understanding, use, and representation of the sky from Indigenous communities to early modern Europe. Through viewings of technological instruments and archival materials, discussions, and hands-on activities with collection items at the Adler Planetarium and the Newberry, participants will be asked to expand awareness for how attitudes towards the heavens in Europe and the Americas from the fifteenth century onwards shaped those on earth. Following Carl Phelphstead’s critique of the environmental humanities’ narrowly earth-centric focus, participants will be asked to think “cosmocritically” to gain new perspectives on the sky—its horizons, its uses, and the various bodies (planets, stars, clouds, birds, deities, zodiacal figures, etc.) it contains—in both European and Indigenous contexts.
This workshop joins in conversation with a series of programming exploring early modern skies, with co-organized events at the UCLA Clark Library. It is also co-hosted by the Adler Planetarium.