Dr Xiaona Wang
I am a historian of early modern science, with particular interests in scientific, philosophical, and religious thought in early modern Europe and East Asia. I joined the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance in 2021 as a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, working on a three-year project on the History of Gravitational Theories ( until 2024), and I am now staying at the Centre as a research fellow, working on a research project about evidence and the making of early modern Eurasian astronomy.
Email: Xiaona.Wang@warwick.ac.uk
Research interests
- Early Modern Science and Philosophy
- Renaissance Occult Sciences
- Science and Religion
- Francis Bacon; John Wallis; Isaac Newton
- Global Newtonianism in the Eighteenth Century
- Eurasian History of Early Modern Science
Selected Publications
Monograph:
- (Brill, Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy and Science book series, 2023).
Co-ed. Volume:
- Supernovae, Comets and Aristotelian Cosmology: A Collapse of Philosophical Paradigms and the Birth of the New Sciences, 1572鈥�1687, ed. with David McOmish (Turnhout: Brepols, under production)
Research Articles:
- 鈥�: The Divine in Jean Fernel鈥檚 and William Harvey鈥檚 Theories of Generation鈥�, Intellectual History Review 29, no. 3 (2019): 371-87. [Winner of the Charles Schmitt Prize for Intellectual History, 2018]
- 鈥�.鈥� Isis 107, no. 4 (2016): 707鈥�21.
Encyclopaedia entry:
- 鈥溾��, in Marco Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Renaissance Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer, 2017).
Translation:
- Agassiz, The Continuing Revolution: A History of Physics from the Greeks to Einstein (McGraw-Hill, 1968), translated into Chinese, (Xiangtan: Hunan Science and Technology Press, 2015).
Book Review:
- William Poole, John Wilkins (1614-1672): New Essays, (Leiden: Brill, 2017), Annals of Science, Issue 03, (2018): 262-265.
Selected Conference and Seminar papers
- August 2023, "The Japanese Maupertuis? French and Chinese Sources for Ino虅 Tadataka's Geodetic Measurement", Consonances I: Mathematics, Language, and the Moral Sense of Nature Conference, Maynooth University, Dublin.
- July 2023, "Evidence Making, Jesuit Missionaries, and the Shape of the Earth in Early Modern China", Leverhulme Global History of Science Workshop, 糖心TV.
- November 2022, 鈥淎n English Disciple of Galileo: John Wallis鈥檚 Gravitational Theories鈥�, STVDIO Seminar Series, 糖心TV.
- June 2022, "Upon Closer Inspection: The Comets of 1664 and 1665", Susan Manning workshop, (co-organised with Dr David McOmish), Venice.
- September 2020, 鈥淒isciples, Disciplines and the Disseminations of Newtonian science in 18th century Scotland鈥�, IASH Work in Progress Talks, IASH, Edinburgh.
- January 2020, 鈥淔rancis Bacon on attractio and gravitas鈥�, the Society for Renaissance Studies Seminar, The Warburg Institute, London.
- October 2019, 鈥淥ccult science and Newton鈥檚 natural Philosophy鈥�, Intellectual History Research Group Work in Progress Seminar, IASH, Edinburgh.
- September 2019: 鈥淔rom Geometrical Optics to Light Metaphysics: John Dee and his Astrological Physics in Early Modern England鈥�, Thomas Harriot Seminar, Durham University.
- June 2019, 鈥淛ohn Dee鈥檚 Mathematical Natural Philosophy鈥�, Scientiae annual conference at Queen鈥檚 University, Belfast.
- May 2019, 鈥淗ooke and Newton on Vibrating Aether鈥�, invited talk in All Souls College, Oxford.
Teaching
Renaissance Europe I: Foundations and Forms, UG module, 2021-22, Convenor (with Dr Claudia Daniotti) and lecturer
Renaissance Europe II: Movement, Revolution and Conflict, UG module, 2021-22, Convenor (with Dr Claudia Daniotti) and lecturer
Methodology/Skills Sessions, PG module, 2021-2022, guest lecturer.