Monday 13 July 2015

Geoffrey Chaucer's Inspirational Astronomy

























OK, so I missed Andy Murray's Wimbledon semi-final.  And I missed seeing England hammer the Aussies in Cardiff.  But I didn't care.  Because I was incredibly excited to be at my first Chaucer conference.

The Biennial London Chaucer Conference took place at the Institute of English Studies last Friday and Saturday.  Given that the manuscript I work on has been (wrongly) attributed to Chaucer, and that the theme of this year's conference was "Science, Magic, and Technology", this was one conference I couldn't miss.

And I'm so glad I was there.  An inspiring series of presentations took hugely varied approaches to the theme.  Literary, historical or scientific, they were all fascinating and I learned so much.  If you want a flavour, check out the #Chaucer2015 hashtag on Twitter.  My cardboard astrolabe featured in the conference's most popular tweet!


If you want to know what I had to say about Chaucer and his influence on the Equatorie of the Planetis, why not watch the video of my presentation (above)?  Hope you enjoy it, and don't forget to comment!