Tayra M. Carmen Lanuza-Navarro

Chemical Heritage Foundation / University of Valencia

Abstract

Astrological culture before its public

My objective is to examine the representation of astronomical phenomena, and their astrological interpretation, in the Spanish theatre of the sixteenth century. The idea is not to use the plays as direct sources of information on the practice of astrology, as has been previously done, using these plays and also medical practice (by Chevalier 1984, Soufas 1990 or Sanchez Granjel 1978). Instead, I will look at  the representation of astrology and its practitioners in theatre plays, considered as a cultural creation of  their contemporary society. The first part of this study is focused on the representation of the variety of astrological practitioners, and how they dramatize the contact between academic astrology (taught at the universities) and other non-scholar astrological practices, usually associated with magic and popular predictions. I also look at the interest of the general public in conventional representations of astrological theories.

Biographical Details

Tayra M.C. Lanuza-Navarro is a postgraduate in the history of science at the University of Valencia, where she obtained her Doctor of History degree (2005) with a thesis entitled ‘Astrology, science and society in the Hapsburgs’ Spain’. She has a second MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology from Bath Spa University. She now works as associate professor of History of Science at the University of Valencia. She is a researcher at the university’s Institute for the History of Science, and at the National Council for Scientific Research, working on a project on Scientific and Medical culture in relation to the public. This project looks at the representation of medical and scientific practices in the Theatre of the Golden Age of Spanish Literature. Her participation focuses on the representation of astrology in the plays of this period. She has participated in several editions of the annual conference of the British Society for the History of Science and of the History of Science Society, and has published articles on the practice of astrology in early modern Spain, from the point of view of history of science.