Join us at Blackwell Hall at the Bodleian between 19 May and 15 July 2018 for a display of Euclidean texts and related artefacts. It is part of a networked exhibition with nearly 30 institutions in Britain and Ireland participating physically with local pop-up displays or virtually via the exhibition website, http://seeingeuclid.org/. download the exhibition flyer in pdf
There is also a series of public lectures, 'Perspectives on Euclid and Geometry', tying in with the display. The lectures start at 7pm on Wednesdays through the month of June, and take place in Lecture Theatre 3 (lower floor) at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford (Andrew Wiles Building, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG). download the lecture series flyer in pdf
Seeing Euclid: a networked exhibition of Euclidean texts, summer 2018
Euclidean geometry has held sway in Europe for nearly two and a half thousand years. It has been used by surveyors to map fields and architects to design buildings, and studied by generations of schoolchildren. Early thinkers turned to it as a source of philosophy; later readers saw in it a monument to the genius of the Greeks, or an exercise for improving the mind. Today Euclid is commemorated in place names, on postage stamps, and even as an interplanetary satellite. The Elements of Geometry was written by Euclid of Alexandria around 300BCE and transmitted through the medieval world in Greek, Arabic, Latin and other languages. In the seventeenth century the Elements enjoyed a particular resurgence. Nearly 300 editions of the text appeared between 1482 and 1700, ranging in size from large library tomes to small pocket-books. Today, more than 1900 copies of these editions are extant in libraries and repositories across Britain and Ireland. Throughout summer 2018, the ‘Seeing Euclid’ network of exhibitions will highlight the legacy of Euclid’s Elements in Early Modern Britain and Ireland, with displays of books and other artefacts from the first two hundred years of Euclid in print. Curated by the research project ‘Reading Euclid’ based at the History Faculty, University of Oxford, and funded by the AHRC, the exhibition is a collaboration between nearly thirty institutions across Britain and Ireland. Visit us at seeingeuclid.org for a map of the participating locations, where you can also find stories about how people lived with, read, used and abused the Elements of Geometry, a most long-lived and wide-ranging cultural artefact. download the network flyer in pdf