Visual Culture and the History of Astronomy

If the premodern sky was a perpetual source of celestial imagery, then premodern astronomy was in some fundamental sense a science of images. Professor Michelle McCoy will present portions of an essay on visual culture in—and as—the history of premodern astral sciences. Focusing on two cases in which images have been used by historians of science to advance a historical claim, McCoy will address some of the promises and challenges of working across image- and text-based modes of argumentation.