Learning Places, TechNetEMPIRE International Conference

The conference aims at tackling the possibility of a comparative view on how, when and where learning institutions of technical and scientific knowledge were organized across empires. By comparing different case studies in fields of knowledge and transformation of the built environment – military engineering, cartography, among others – the goal is to establish a comparative frame of the political-scientific enterprise of empires, across geographies and times.
The conference proposes a comparative reading between formal or non-formal structures of learning and individual agency abilities, that enables the understanding of transformations, influences and entanglements in different geographies from multiple spheres of knowledge and practices.
This event is part of the research project TechNetEMPIRE - Technoscientific networks in the construction of the built environment in the Portuguese Empire (1647-1871) financed by the Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technology (FCT: PTDC/ART-DAQ/31959/2017).

Working language: English.
The attendance is free but previous registration is needed ( https://forms.gle/DQJqmuGXb76AvWB57).

PROGRAMME

DAY 1, 3 February
11h00. Opening
11h20-14.00. Session 1

Building expertise. Learning places in the Portuguese Empire
Renata Malcher de Araújo, CHAM, FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa e Universidade do Algarve
Margarida Tavares da Conceição, IHA, FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa
Alice Santiago Faria, CHAM, FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa

'Servants of Mathesis'. Early 17th-century teaching in geometry and fortification and digital mathematics education
Charles van den Heuvel, Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands (KNAW), University of Amsterdam
Henk Hietbrink, Independent scholar

Mapping and visualizing the connected colonial worlds in Dutch and Portuguese mid-seventeenth-century vistas, maps, land and sea surveys. The case of Cosimo III de Medici’s 'Carte di Castello'
Angelo Cattaneo, CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche / National Research Council, Rome

Engineers for the empire: from the Academies of Mathematics in Spain to fortification practices in American territories (eighteenth century)
Jorge Galindo-Diaz, Universidad Nacional de Colombia

12h40-13h00. Discussion
13h00-14h30. Lunch break
14h30-16h10. Session 2

The Royal Houses of Panamá (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries): the idea of a fortification
Silvia Arroyo Duarte, Universidad de Panamá / Sistema Nacional de Investigación

Academic vs Colonial Fortification. Cultural dialogue on building techniques in the Spanish Caribbean and the Philippines
Pedro Luengo, Universidad de Sevilla

Skills and actions of the Portuguese military engineer Diogo da Silveira Veloso. Analysis of the inspection reports of fortifications in the captaincy of Pernambuco, Brazil
Clovis Ramiro Jucá Neto, Universidade Federal do Ceará

Cartography and mining in Acaraú hinterlands: mapping engineers and practionners in Ceará, Brazil (1761-1822)
Isabelle Mendonça de Carvalho, Master's student in Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo
Beatriz Piccolotto Siqueira Bueno, Associate professor at the School of Architecture and Urbanism, University of São Paulo

15h50-16h10. Discussion
16h10-16h30. Coffee break
16h30-17h30. Keynote Lecture

KAREL DAVIDS, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Empire, agents and knowledge: a view from the sea

17h30h-18h00. Discussion & Closing

DAY 2, 4 February
11h.00-13h00. Session 3

From the theory to practice. Military engineering in the Gulf of Mexico during the second half of the eighteenth century
Miguel Ángel Nieto Marquez, Universidad de Sevilla

(In)formal learning: military engineer education in Luanda in the eighteenth century
Sara Ventura da Cruz, Institute of Interdisciplinary Research (III-UC) and the Centre for Social Studies (CES-UC) of the University of Coimbra

Building a "New World" in the Azores archipelago: the Enlightenment and its agents
Antonieta Reis Leite, Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra

Drawing the territory and clamming borders. Cartographic expeditions in southern Brazil in the middle of the eighteenth century
João Paulo Cabeleira Marques Coelho, Lab2PT/EAAD

A Luso-Brazilian cartographer in the era of constitutional revolutions: José Fernandes Portugal
Iris Kantor, University of São Paulo

12h40-13h00. Discussion
13h00-14h30. Lunch break
14h30-16h10. Session 4

On building empires: colonial companies, spatial planning and the circulation of knowledge
Beatriz Serrazina, Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra

The professional training in the field of architecture in nineteenth century Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro: institutions and temporalities
Karolyna de Paula Koppke, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Arquitetura, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (PROARQ/UFRJ) and Ibmec RJ

Culture and technology in the kingdom of Italy: the Politecnico di Milano
Ludovica Cappelletti, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Nikolay Grech, an innovator in Russian military and technical schools of the nineteenth century
Marina Aksenova, Minin University (Nizhny Novgorod State Pedagogical University)

15h50-16h10.Discussion
16h10-16h30. Coffee break
16h30-17h30. Keynote Lecture

EMILIE D'ORGEIX, École Pratique des Hautes Études, PSL

17h30-18h00.Discussion
18h00. Final remarks & Closing