Conference at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry Berlin, 23–24 May 2019

As new technologies gradually rendered the invisible world available to human perception, the tiny and minor, the minute and infinitesimal gained new importance in literature, philosophy, mathematics, natural sciences, and medicine. Milieus of Minutiae explores the interconnections between this development, beginning in early modernity, and the increasingly prominent concept of the ‘milieu’ from the nineteenth century onward. The symposium will reflect on the objectivity, supra-metonymy, epistemology, and the ontological value of small and micrological units, from the ens minima to the detail, within particular environments, from the ecological to the social.

Organized by

Elizabeth Brogden, Christiane Frey, and Ulla Haselstein

With

Natalia Cecire,Tita Chico,
Anne Eusterschulte, Roger Maioli, Nikolai Preuschoff, Pauline Selbig, John H. Smith, Elisa Tamarkin,
Cynthia Wall
et al

Keynotes by

Hans-Jörg Rheinberger and Marianne Schuller

Funded by

Fritz Thyssen Foundation

Please visit for further information: ICI Berlin.

And find the program here.