COSMOPOET

This week Cosmopoet is in sunny 🌞 (no joke!) Cambridge and there are clocks all around: some eat time, while others are on a diet ☺️

The Byzantium in the Global Middle Ages OIKOS course was organised by Divna Manolova and Giulia Maria Paoletti, Department of Literary Studies – Greek Section, Ghent University.

💛 A heartfelt thank you to all participants for their thoughtful engagement, insightful questions, and intellectual curiosity across both days. Your active participation made this edition of the course especially rewarding 🌟👏.

We warmly thank HPIMS for their enthusiasm and partnership; this collaboration clearly enriched the course and opened new avenues for future joint initiatives 🚀.

In addition to critically engaging with the ‘Global Turn’, this year’s edition also included a collaboration with the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies (HPIMS). The Global Middle Ages Research & Networking Mixer proved an innovative and highly successful format.

The Teaching Team included Arpine Asryan (Mesrop Mashtots Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts-Matenadaran), Divna Manolova (Ghent University), Giulia Paoletti (Ghent University), Grigory Vorobyev (Ghent University), John Latham-Sprinkle (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Philip Forness (KU Leuven)

local and imperial cultural traditions evidenced in Armenian architecture and book production 🏛️📖, global perspectives on Byzantine literature 🌏✨, and the diversity of written artefacts and their circulation across premodern Afro-Eurasia.

Through six seminar sessions, participants examined how science shaped diverse worldviews in Byzantium 🔭, the dialogue between Syriac and Byzantine literary cultures ✒️📜, notions of empire against the backdrop of the medieval Caucasus and Black Sea regions 🗺️,

OIKOS Course Byzantium in the Global Middle Ages at UGent 📅 2–3 February 2026📍Ghent University
The biennial OIKOS course on Byzantine Culture brought together ReMA and PhD students from Belgium and the Netherlands for an intensive exploration of the theme of Byzantium in the Global Middle Ages.

Happily listening to Arpine Asryan about the introduction of #sundials to Armenia in the seventh century 🥰☀️🕒

YouTube video by Jay M Interstellar - Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Scene 1080p HD

The final #poem for this week is a poem cast against a #cosmic background in the movie Interstellar: "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas. I thank my colleague Yiming Liang for this suggestion! www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_np...

And a second post today, this time for the project records: on 2 and 3 February 2026, the OIKOS #Byzantium in the Global Middle Ages course will take place and within it, a very exciting research mixer, a result of COSMOPOET's ongoing collaboration with #HPIMS: www.rug.nl/research/res...

Remember Remember the sky that you were born under,

The second #poem this week was suggested by Matthieu Husson, a historian of medieval astronomy. This is "Remember", by Joy Harjo: poets.org/poem/remembe...

protuberanze, e getti, e radiazioni
corpuscolari, eclissi comprensive
di pieni pianetini e pianetoni,
aurore ipercompresse in somme stive:
oh, chiare notti gravitazionali,
mie fragili scintille zodiacali!

così forse è: facelle in evezioni,
sciami di nebulose fuggitive,
supergiganti, code in librazioni,
variabili cefeidi recidive:

"Sonetto astrale" (Astral sonnet) by the Italian poet Edoardo Sanguineti (1930-2010):

Pulsano pulsar con forti pulsioni:
ecco a voi quasar, quasi stelle vive:
collassano assai dense, per pressioni
che imbucano per sempre, in nere rive;

🧵After learning about the idea behind Cosmopoet, friends and colleagues have started sending me poems that fit the theme and that they love. This week I want to share them here, one at a time. The first suggestion is by Eleonora Cattafi, a poet herself (research.flw.ugent.be/nl/eleonora....):

The call for the 2026 Training Week: Global History of Astronomy on Primary Sources – A Focus on Cosmology, Physics and Astrology is now open! eida.hypotheses.org/seminars-2/2...

June 8-12 2026

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Observatoire de Paris

Deadline: 30/01/26 #historyofastralsciences

I took the wrong exit and stumbled upon the impressive constellation ceiling leading towards Galerie Ravenstein ✨✨✨💫💫💫🌌🌌🌌 #starwalks

25 | 2025 Les mathématiques médiévales dans le monde latin Revue interdisciplinaire croisant autour d’un thème les méthodes et analyses de philosophes, philologues et historiens des sciences Multidisciplinary journal of research on philosophy, philogy and...

New volume of Methodos Vol. 25 (2025) journals.openedition.org/methodos/10599 @openedition.bsky.social Les mathématiques médiévales dans le monde latin @medphiljournals.bsky.social

A new installment in the Ghent #starwalks (and I don't mean the recent sightings of Nicolas Cage shooting a movie on the Graslei) comes from a private residence, a sun ☀️ and moon 🌙 house that is only visible after dark 🌑

Thank you, @stephenaj.bsky.social ! This is all fascinating - the continuity and the meandering, the variations and the innovations.

An example of impact: first you speak about lunar phases #diagrams in 14th C #Byzantine #manuscripts, then you find them recreated in the doctoral students' office 🤩🙏🏻🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘

We also need context of your comparandum, @stephenaj.bsky.social 🙏🏻! But first a question: I the Saint Germain example, do you think there is any meaning to 12 o clock being aligned with Leo? Also more generally, since this zodiac is an unmoving relief, is it only ornamental - standing for the year?

This little rabbit hole led me to discover clochers.org which has many more bell towers and clocks! 🕛🔔

I've been documenting #starwalks in Ghent, but here is a nice find from Saint-Germain-en-Laye as I was walking with @florence-somer.bsky.social : a bell tower, a clock and the #zodiac 🐏⚖️🦀🐐✨✨ The church of Saint Germain, 1827.

Lunch Lecture Session with Qianyu Wang & Dr. Divna Manolova First duo lunch lecture session of the Medieval Seminar Series 2025-2026

This Friday, 21 November, COSMOPOET will present at the lunch seminar of Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies: www.ugent.be/pirenne/en/n... This is an in-person event. All are welcome!

In November, COSMOPOET invites you to: 1) on 13 Nov, a History of Science, History of Text seminar day on Diagrams and Illustrations (sphere.cnrs.fr/en/event/sem...), both in Paris and on Zoom; and 2) an in-person double HPIMS lunch lecture session in Gent on 21 Nov www.ugent.be/pirenne/en/n... ✨🌌📖✨

Too tired to make any meaningful posts right now, just wanted to say a huge Thank you! to everyone involved!! I am so grateful, so impressed by everyone's ideas, kindness and support and so sorry it all went so quickly! Good night to all cosmopoets!!

Day 2: almost set up