Speaker Biographies
Name: Ashraf Akhmedov
Ulugbek and his Astronomical 'Zij'
Biography:
Prof. Ashraf Akhmedov – a graduate of the Faculty of Mathematics of the Tashkent State University (1963), he entered the graduate school of TSU with a degree in History of Mathematics. In 1970 he defended the scientific degree of a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences with a dissertation “Issues of substantiating geometry in Ashkal at-ta'sis Shamsiddin Samarkandi”. In 1986 he defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences on the topic "Scientific heritage of al-Khwarizmi and its place in the history of science and culture." From January 1973 to the present, he has been working at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Professor since 1983. Author of more than 300 scientific papers, including 35 monographs. These works are mainly translations of A. Akhmedov with his comments on the works of Muhammad al-Khwarizmi, Abu Raykhan Beruni and Mirzo Ulugbek from Arabic and Farsi.
Name: Steven Vanden Broecke
Historicizing agency and politics in astrology. The cases of Conrad Heingarter (before 1440-after 1504) and Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576)
Biography:
Steven Vanden Broecke (PhD in History, K.U. Leuven, 2000) teaches early modern intellectual history and history of science at Ghent University (Belgium). His preferred research topics include the history of astrology and astronomy, science and religion, embodiment and the passions, and the history of possession (broadly defined). The monograph on which he is currently working, approaches European astrology between c. 1300 and 1700 CE as a perennially changing practice of self-care and self-transformation. Recent work includes a critical edition of the oldest preserved astrological autobiography (Henry Bate’s Nativitas, 1280-1 CE) and an edited volume on truth-making practices in early modern Catholicism.
Name: Nick Campion
Harmony, Horoscopes and History
Biography:
Nicholas Campion is Associate Professor in Cosmology and Culture, Principal Lecturer in the Institute of Education and Humanities and Director of the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, the only academic centre in the world to consider humanity’s relationship with the sky. He is Programme Director of the University's MAs in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology, and Ecology and Spirituality. His books include The Great Year: Astrology, Millenarianism and History in the Western Tradition (London: Penguin, 1994), the two-volume History of Western Astrology (London: Bloomsbury 2008/9), Astrology and Cosmology in the World’s Religions (New York: New York University Press, 2012), Astrology and Popular Religion in the Modern West: Prophecy, Cosmology and the New Age Movement (London: Routledge, 2012). The New Age in the Modern West: Counter-Culture, Utopia and Prophecy from the late Eighteenth Century to the Present Day (London: Bloomsbury 2015). He is the editor of Culture and Cosmos, the journal on the history of cultural astronomy and astrology. Current projects include the six volume Cultural History of the Universe (Bloomsbury, forthcoming), for which he is General Editor.
Name: Karine Dilanian
Great conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn, eschatology of Moscow as the Third Rome and Ivan the Terrible political propaganda
Biography:
Karine Dilanian holds an MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, UK. She is a co-founder of the Institute for the Study of Cosmology and Astronomy in History, Philosophy and Culture in Moscow, Russia. Karine is the originator and a publisher of The Kepler Project, a publication of the astrological handwritten manuscripts of Johannes Kepler. She was a speaker at the Sophia Centre key-concept lecture on Kepler and presented her research at the SEAC 2016 and 2018 conferences.
Name: Vladimir V. Emelianov
The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Cultic Calendar
Biography:
Professor, Department of Semitic and Hebrew Studies, Faculty of Asian and African Studies, Saint Petersburg State university.
Education:
2005, Doctor of Science in Philosophy. Faculty of Philosophy, St-Petersburg State University. Diss. Hab. "Calendar Ritual in Sumerian Religion and Culture (ME's and the Spring Festivals)".
1993-1997, St.-Petersburg Institute for Oriental Studies. Post-graduate school under Prof. Dr. Igor M. Diakonoff. Ph.D. in History "The Nippur Calendar as a Source on the History of Sumerian and Akkadian Cultures".
1992, Graduated from the Faculty of Asian and African Studies of St.-Petersburg State University (Department of Ancient Near East, Assyriology). Diploma Thesis "The Sumerian Consecration Incantation as Part of the Water Consecration Ceremony".
Research interests:
Sumerian and Akkadian Religion, Sumerian and Akkadian Literature, Calendars of the Ancient Near East, Chronology and Heortology, Pre-philosophy.
Publications:
250, including 8 monographs
Name: Giangiacomo Gandolfi
Legitimized by the Stars: Astrological Secrets of the Medici from Cosimo the Elder to Ferdinando I
Biography:
I am an astrophysicist and scientific communicator with a long-standing experience in the field of institutional Outreach and of Planetaria. I worked as a space scientist in Rome for Telespazio srl and for CNR, as a planetarian in Planetario di Roma and at the same time I collaborated with many Italian magazines as an independent science writer. Now I am full time curator of the Library and Historical Archive of INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, collaborating with the staff that preserves and promotes the rich historical collections of the Observatory. My interest is particularly stimulated by the interaction of sky and human culture in general, but especially by its relationship with literature and theatre and I was the editor of the literary anthology "Piccolo Atlante Celeste" (Einaudi, 2009), a collection of international short-stories about the stars and the universe.
Member of Società Italiana di Archeoastronomia and of SEAC, since many years I study in depth Cultural Astronomy and I carry out research activities about astral representations in the art of the Middle Age, Renaissance and Baroque. In this field I investigated in particular the astral elements of Giorgionesque art, the “astrological” orientation of Villa Farnesina in Rome and the prophetic meaning of the celestial vault of the Cappella del Rosario in the Cathedral of Montagnana. Furthermore I discovered and studied a large and unedited pictorial cycle of the XVIII century about the history of Astronomy in an unknown private “specola” in the roman Palazzo Montoro and I organized in October 2022 a Workshop in the Museo Galileo of Florence dedicated to the celestial hemispheres of San Lorenzo and Santa Croce.
Name: R. Hakan Kırkoğlu
The Sultan and his astrologer: The practice of astrology in the Ottoman court during the eighteenth century
Biography:
R. Hakan Kırkoğlu holds two MA degrees in History (2016) and Economics (1991) from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. His recent MA thesis titled Ilm-i Nücum and Its Role in the Ottoman Court during the Eighteenth Century at the Boğaziçi University has also been published as a book. (2017) He graduated from Management Engineering Department in Istanbul Technical University (1988) As an astrologer and researcher, he has been interested in the history of astrology and science. His article Ilm-i Nudjum and Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Court Politics has been published in the the Journal of Culture and Cosmos, Vol.18, No:2 by Sophia Center Press
Name: Ulla Koch
Jupiter and the Assyrian King
Biography:
Ulla Koch (Ph.D.). Assyriologist affiliated with the Dept. of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Her main fields of research are Mesopotamian divination, religion and literature. She has published and translated numerous primary cuneiform sources into English and Danish, including divinatory texts, the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Babylonian epic of creation, Enuma Elish. She has written monographs and articles primarily on Mesopotamian divination and literature and has recently published a monograph on the 1st millennium Mesopotamian divinatory genres (Mesopotamian Divination Texts – Conversing with the Gods. 2015) Since 2004 she has worked with IT in the defense and health sectors thus demonstrating the never ceasing relevance of cuneiform studies.
Name: Oleg Lushnikov
The contribution of Eastern scholars of the VIII-XV centuries to the development of the science of the stars
Biography:
Historian and political scientist. Candidate of Historical Sciences, associate Professor. Director of the G.V. Vernadsky Center for Eurasian Studies of Perm State Humanitarian Pedagogical University. Member of the Society of Orientalists of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Author of more than 100 scientific, methodological and popular scientific publications (including 4 monographs).
Name: Ruben Nazaryan
Along The Trails of The Legendary Timurid Librarys
Biography:
Candidate of philological sciences, associate professor of Samarkand State University (Republic of Uzbekistan). Awarded the honorary title "Excellence in Education of the Republic of Uzbekistan". Author of more than 1000 scientific papers and monographs published in 20 countries.
Name: David W. Pankenier
Medieval Chinese Planetary Astrology
Biography:
David Pankenier earned his Ph.D. in Asian Languages from Stanford University in 1983. He is an International Fellow in the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Uppsala, and member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Dr. Pankenier served on the Executive Committee of the International Conferences on the Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena (INSAP), the European Society for Astronomy in Culture (SEAC) and the advisory board of the Journal of the History of Astronomy. The author of numerous articles and four books on ancient Chinese astronomy, astrology, chronology, and history, his latest book, Astrology and Cosmology in Early China: Conforming Earth to Heaven was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013.
Name: Eugeny Pchelov
Heraldic astronomy: dedications to monarchs on maps of the stellar sky
Biography:
Pchelov Eugene - PhD in History, associate Professor, head of Department of auxiliary historical sciences of Russian State University for Humanities. Senior researcher of Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the author of the 900 published works, including 25 books, on Russian history, auxiliary historical sciences (historical chronology, heraldry, genealogy, etc.), cultural history and history of science, including the history of astronomy.
Name: Micah T. Ross
Persian Skies over China
Biography:
Micah T. Ross studied Greek and Latin at Brown University in Providence, RI. In 2000, he earned a MA at the University of Toronto in Ancient Studies. In 2006, he received a PhD as the student of David Pingree.
Name: H. Darrel Rutkin
Astrology and the Age of Aquarius: Great Conjunctions (Then and Now), Divine Providence and the Unfolding Transformations of Human History
Biography:
With his PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science from Indiana University, H Darrel Rutkin is a historian of science and philosophy specializing in the history of medieval, Renaissance and early modern astrology, ca. 1250-1800. His work focuses on astrology’s numerous relationships to science, theology and magic within their relevant conceptual, institutional, confessional, socio-political and cultural contexts over the longue durée. Among many other questions, he is concerned to establish astrology’s centrality to the premodern Aristotelian-Ptolemaic-Galenic understanding of nature ca. 1250-1600 both conceptually and institutionally. He then uses these structures—especially the patterns of their teaching at the finest premodern universities—to reveal the complex patterns of how astrology was marginalized and ultimately removed from the map of legitimate knowledge and practice during the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment.
Among numerous other publications, he has recently completed volume I of his first monograph, Sapientia Astrologica: Astrology, Magic and Natural Knowledge, ca. 1250-1800, which appeared in 2019 in the series, “Archimedes: New Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology,” Jed Z. Buchwald (ed), Dordrecht: Springer, 3 vols. Volume I is entitled, “Medieval Structures (1250-1500): Conceptual, Institutional, Socio-Political, Religous and Cultural.” He is currently completing volume II, which is entitled: “Renaissance Structures (1450-1500): Continuities and Transformations,” which deals primarily with Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. He has also co-edited Horoscopes and Public Spheres: Essays on the History of Astrology, with Günther Oestmann and Kocku von Stuckrad (Berlin, 2005). Two of his most recent publication are: “How to Accurately Account for Astrology’s Marginalization in the History of Science and Culture: The Essential Importance of an Interpretive Framework,” in a special issue of Early Science and Medicine edited by Hiro Hirai and Rienk Vermij, 23 (2018): 217-43. The other is: “Is Astrology a Type of Divination?: Thomas Aquinas, the Index of Prohibited Books and the Construction of a Legitimate Astrology in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,” International Journal of Divination and Prognostication 1 (2019): 36-74. He has also contributed to the Cambridge History of Science and the Harvard Companion to the Classical Tradition.
Name: Liana Saif
The Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica's Astrological Cycles: Sources and Influences
Biography:
Liana Saif is a historian focused on Islamic esotericism and the occult sciences in the medieval period (eighth to the thirteenth century). She has recently co-edited the highly anticipated volume Islamicate Occult Sciences: Theory and Practice, with Francesca Leoni, Farouk Yahya and Matthew Melvin-Koushki, (Leiden: Brill, 2021). She also pays special attention to intercultural exchange of esoteric and occult ideas between the Islamicate and Latinate worlds all the way to the European Renaissance, as reflected in her first monograph "The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy" published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015.
Name: Shlomo Sela
Historical Astrology in the Rise of Medieval Hebrew Science (Abraham Bar Hiyya and Abraham Ibn Ezra)
Biography:
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Name: Octavia Sheepshanks
Calling for a contemporary understanding of 'Political Skies'
Biography:
After her studies in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge were interrupted by illness, Octavia became a student of the Sophia Centre in 2017. She graduated with an MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology in 2021, receiving a distinction for her dissertation on the 'Overview Effect' and enchantment. She now plans to research whether sustainability in space exploration can be encouraged through fostering a sense of place and community. After studying practical astrology in harmony with her academic studies over the past four years, she recently launched her own astrological practice online. She lives in London.
