PRESENTATION

Pairing historians of science with cultural historians, anthropologists, and historians of religion, this conference aims to explore the mathematics of ritual, and the ritual of mathematics, in Chinese, Sanskrit, and Latin sources from ancient times to the modern day.

Our primary focus will be the mathematics of religious timing, i.e. the calculation of liturgical calendars and the selection of propitious moments for ritual action therein.

Taking this up from premodern (Sanskrit, Latin) and modern (Chinese) ends, we will explore how historical actors have sought to shape religious time upon ideals of scientific accuracy and modernity and the disparities experienced in this regard between the world of ideals and that of practice.

Turning from there to the construction of ritual space, we will explore the mathematics of premodern archery contests (Chinese), sacrificial altar-construction (Sanskrit), and commentary on classical mourning garments (Chinese), at the core of which is the question of the mathematical abstraction of the sacred and the sacrality of mathematical abstraction.

See the full présentation:

RitualMaths_presentationProgram2016