PUBLICATION: Encounters with Euclid by Benjamin Wardhaugh (Princeton, 2021)

The US edition of Benjamin Wardhaugh‘s book on Euclid has just been published by Princeton University Press. For more information on Encounters with Euclid: How an Ancient Greek Geometry Text Shaped the World, see https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691211695/encounters-with-euclid.

Benjamin’s post, ‘Who was Euclid?’, on the Princeton University Press blog can be accessed at https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/who-was-euclid.

Euclid was also recently featured on National Review’s ‘The Great Books’ podcast. To listen to an interview with Benjamin on The Elements of Geometry, go to https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/the-great-books/episode-187-the-elements-of-geometry-by-euclid/.

PUBLICATION: Reading Mathematics in Early Modern Europe (Routledge, 2021)

Reading Mathematics in Early Modern Europe. Studies in the Production, Collection, and Use of Mathematical Books, edited by the project team, will be published in October 2020 through the ‘Material Readings in Early Modern Culture’ series by Routledge. The volume features contributions from Philip Beeley, Vincenzo de Risi, Mordechai Feingold, Robert Goulding, Boris Jardine, Yelda Nasifoglu, Richard J. Oosterhoff, William Poole, Renée Raphael, Kevin Tracey, and Benjamin Wardhaugh.

For more information, including the table of contents, see https://www.routledge.com/Reading-Mathematics-in-Early-Modern-Europe-Studies-in-the-Production-Collection/Beeley-Nasifoglu-Wardhaugh/p/book/9780367609252

Programme: The mathematical book trade in the early modern world

A provisional programme for ‘The mathematical book trade in the early modern world’ workshop is now available for download from www.benjaminwardhaugh.co.uk/workshops/index.html.

The confirmed speakers are Philip Beeley, Elizabeth Biggs, Agnes Gehbald, Stefano Gulizia, Boris Jardine, Matthew Landrus, Ian Maclean, Yelda Nasifoglu, Renae Satterley, Tabitha Tuckett, Nick Wilding.

Places are available for observers; attendance fee is £40 (including dinner). Unfortunately accommodation cannot be provided for observers. To reserve a place, or for any enquiries, please contact [email protected].

CFP: The mathematical book trade in the early modern world

19–20 December 2019
All Souls College, Oxford

Call for Papers:
The mathematical book trade in the early modern world

Mathematical books were a distinct specialism for certain early modern print shops, and they were of special interest to certain readers and institutions. Mathematical tables, geometrical diagrams and the new algebraic notation made for a distinct appearance on the page and, for many of those involved in their production and use, a distinct class of book. Primers, textbooks and practical manuals as well as new editions of the mathematical classics and works containing new mathematics issued from the presses in large numbers and were purchased, collected, used, and in many cases re-sold, sometimes repeatedly. In what ways was the advertisement, sale and subsequent re-circulation of mathematical books distinctive? What was the place of mathematical books in the activity of book collectors and connoisseurs? Were there distinctive issues in respect of pricing or of re-use of mathematical print? How did the actual use of mathematical books relate to the stratification of the market attempted by some producers and sellers of those books? These issues are the subject of this two-day workshop, to be held in All Souls College, Oxford.

Confirmed speakers:

Philip Beeley
Ian Maclean
Yelda Nasifoglu
Renae Satterley
Tabitha Tuckett
Nick Wilding

Proposals for papers are invited on, but not confined to, the following subject areas:

-Prices, print runs and advertisement for mathematical books
-Collectors and early modern collections of mathematical books
-Mathematical books as objects of prestige and display
-The trade in second-hand mathematical books

Proposals for papers should include an abstract of no more than 250 words and a brief CV, and should be emailed to [email protected] by 15 September 2019. The conference can contribute to travel costs for speakers.