Astro-Morphomata. Dialogues of Cosmology and Cosmopolitanism in Media
and Culture. Sternenwissen und Weltbürgertum in Medien und Kultur

Cosmology and cosmopolitanism describe two different types of knowledge
or belief, one deriving from natural sciences, the other from the
Humanities. Both discourses, each in its own epistemic frame, deal with
concepts of cosmos, universe, globe, world, or planet.

The conference explores the dynamic processes by which, on the one
hand, cosmological ideas and, on the other hand, cultural, political,
philosophical, or religious ideas have been affecting one another.

The conference is particularly sensitive to the role of the media in
this exchange. It seeks to investigate how shifts in the history of
media interact with epistemological and ideological changes – from the
first telescopic observation of the solar system by Galileo in 1609,
until our present age of digital astral photography, radio electronics,
artificial satellites, and space travel, each time asking how new
world-views force us to reinvent ourselves as (post-)modern,
(post-)enlightened, and (post-)global subjects.

10.00 Dietrich Boschung (Köln) Eröffnung

Wie Welt denken? – How to Think the World
10.15 Gerd Graßhoff (Berlin) Ptolemaios und die Methode der
Wissenschaft
11.00 Kaffeepause

Einführung – Introduction
11.30 Sonja Neef, Henry Sussman (Paris/Yale)
The Glorious Moment of Astro-Morphomata
13.00 Mittagessen

Politik der Sterne – Politics of the Stars
14.30 Lucia Ayala (Berlin/Granada) Cosmological and Cosmopolitan Ideas
of a Plurality of Worlds in the Early Enlightenment
15.15 David Aubin (Paris) On the Cosmopolitics of Astronomy in 19th
Century Paris
16.00 Kaffeepause

Poetik der Sterne – Astro-Poetics
16.30 Dietrich Boschung (Köln) Astromorphomata: Kosmologische
Vorstellungen in der Kunst der Antike
17.15 Annemarie Ambühl (Köln/Mainz/Groningen) The »Coma Berenices«:
From Cosmology to Comicology
18.00 Kaffeepause
18.30 Plenumsdiskussion Moderation N.N.

Mediatisierte Welten – Mediated Worlds
09.30 Hans-Christian von Hermann (Berlin) Das Projektions-planetarium
als Figuration planetarischen Denkens
10.15 Bruno Clarke (Texas) Mediations of Gaia
11.00 Kaffeepause

Mögliche Welten – Possible Worlds
11.30 Bertrand Westphal (Limoges) La pulsion spatiale. Le monde et ses
projections sidérales
12.15 Sonja Neef (Paris) Planetarische Ästhetik bei Mona Hatoum und
Ingo Günther
13.00 Mittagessen

Meta-Astro-physics
14.30 Patricia Pisters (Amsterdam) A Metaphysical Star War: Cosmic
Aesthetics and Visions in »The Fountain« and »The Tree of Life«
15.15 Henry Sussman (Yale) From Leon to Hollywood Boulevard by Way of
Paris: Astro-Celebrity in the Broader Modernity
16.00 Kaffeepause

Kritische Welträume – Critique of Outer Space
16.30 Michael Wetzel (Bonn) Welt-Raum-Erfahrungen bei Husserl, Virilio,
Kubrick und Carpenter
17.15 Thomas Macho (Berlin) Hamlets Mühlen: Zur Geschichte des
Panbabylonismus
18.00 Kaffeepause
18.30 Abschlussdiskussion Moderation Martina Leeker