Michael H. Shank
Professor, History of Science and Integrated Liberal Studies
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Special interests and recent research:
Broad interests in the physical sciences (and their analogues and contexts) before 1700. Primary research interests focus on late medieval natural philosophy and astronomy, with special attention to the Viennese tradition and most specifically, of late, the work of Johannes Regiomontanus (d. 1476). Additional related interests: science and the medieval university, science and early printing, and Piero della Francesca.
Recent publications:
- “Astronomia tra corte e università,” in Il Rinascimento italiano e l’Europa, vol. 5: Le scienze, Antonio Clericuzio and Germana Ernst, eds. (Treviso: Angelo Colla, 2008), pp. 3-20.
- “Regiomontanus as a Physical Astronomer: Samplings from the Defence of Theon against George of Trebizond,” Journal for the History of Astronomy 38 (2007) pp. 325-49.
- “Mechanical Thinking in European Astronomy (13th-15th Centuries),” in Massimo Bucciantini, Michele Camerota, and Sophie Roux, eds., Mechanics and Cosmology in the Medieval and Early Modern Period (Biblioteca di Nuncius, 64) (Florence: Leo Olschki, 2007), pp. 3-27.
- "Setting the Stage: Galileo in Tuscany, the Veneto, and Rome," in Ernan McMullin, ed., The Church and Galileo (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), pp. 57-87.
- "Rings in Fluid Heaven: The Equatorium-Driven Cosmology of Guido de Marchia (fl. 1309)" Centaurus 45 (2003), pp. 175-203.
- "Goldsteinian Themes in Regiomontanus's 'Defense of Theon against George of Trebizond'," Perspectives on Science 10 (2003), pp. 179-207.
- Edited The Scientific Enterprise in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Readings from Isis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
- "Regiomontanus and Homocentric Astronomy," Journal for the History of Astronomy 27 (1998) 157-166.
- "Academic Consulting in Late Medieval Vienna: The Case of Astrology," in Michael McVaugh and Edith Sylla, eds., Texts and Contexts in Ancient and Medieval Science: Studies on the Occasion of John E. Murdoch's Seventieth Birthday (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 245-270.
- "How Shall We Practice History? The Case of Mario Biagioli's Galileo, Courtier," Early Science and Medicine 1 (1996) 106-150.
- "The Classical Scientific Tradition in Fifteenth-Century Vienna," in F. Jamil Ragep and Sally Ragep, with Steven Livesey, eds., Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Proceedings of Two Conferences on Pre-modern Science held at the University of Oklahoma (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 115-136.
Recent papers:
- "The Faces of Saturn: Images and Texts to 1650," INSAP V, The Adler Planetarium, Chicago, 29 June 2005.
- "Preparing Copernicus: Regiomontanus's Fifteenth-Century Critique of Astronomy," Distinguished Faculty Lectures (Focus on the Humanities), University of Wisconsin-Madison, 9 March 2005.
- "The Place of Regiomontanus in the Copernican Revolution," Centro di Ricerca Matematica Ennio de Giorgi, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy, 6-7 December 2005.
- "Before the Revolution: Fifteenth-Century European Astronomy in Context," Conference on The Forgotten Fifteenth Century, Max-Plank-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin, Germany, 13-16 January 2005.
- "Models and Machines in European Astronomy, 1300-1700," European Science Foundation Workshop. Mechanics and Cosmology, Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, Florence, Italy, 25-27 November 2004.
- "The Astronomer's Role in the Fifteenth Century: The Perspective of Regiomontanus," Northwestern University, 19 February 1999; Indiana University, 5 March 1999; University of California-San Diego, 1 June 1999.
- "Piero della Francesca's 'Flagellation of Christ:' A Historiographical Critique and Reinterpretation" Department of Art History, University of Iowa, 8 April 1998; reworked as "Astronomical Themes in Piero della Francesca's Flagellation," Notre Dame History of Astronomy Workshop, 3 July 1999.