Workshop: Material Substances in Chemistry and Beyond

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Workshop “Material Substances in Chemistry and Beyond“

Department of the History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge

6 December 2022

The Association for the Discussion of the History of Chemistry (AD HOC) will host a one-day workshop on Tuesday 6 December 2022 exploring the historiography of material substances beyond the traditional boundaries of the history of chemistry.

Material substances – often literally – move across different spaces and disciplines, thereby offering a novel perspective on history. How do we study the different interactions that take place between people and substances? What is the impact of such historical accounts on our traditional understanding of chemistry and its practitioners? And how does this perspective invite us to rethink the way in which we define chemical substances themselves? This workshop will address such questions with the help of three distinguished invited speakers.

The workshop will take place in person at the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science of the University of Cambridge. Lunch will be provided. Registration is free but required (for catering purposes). In order to register, please email snh33@cam.ac.uk with the subject line ‘material substances registration’.

Organizers: Sarah Hijmans and Hasok Chang

Sponsored by the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry

Programme

9.55-10.00          Introductory remarks

10.00-11.00        Lissa Roberts (University of Twente)

“Material Itineraries”

11.00-12.00        Patricia Fara (University of Cambridge)

“Chemical Canaries: Munitions Workers in World War One”

12.00-1.30          Catered Lunch

1.30-2.30             Simon Werrett (University College London)

“The Sporadic Table”

2.30-3.00             Discussion

Online Seminar Nov 17th: A Not-So-Lazy Henry

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The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Professor Peter Forshaw (University of Amsterdam) who will present  

A Not-So-Lazy Henry: Heinrich Khunrath in his Laboratory 


This will be live on Thursday, 17 November 2022, beginning at 5.00pm GMT (6.00pm CET, 12 noon ET, 9.00am PST). The format will be a talk of 20-30 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion of half an hour.  

The Zoom link can be freely accessed by anyone, member of SHAC or not, via the following Eventbrite link: 

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/shac-online-seminar-professor-peter-forshaw-tickets-459919941927

Alternatively, the seminar can be accessed live on YouTube at https://youtu.be/dQcHH1aenwg


Most previous on-line seminars can be found on the SHAC YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/SocietyforHistoryofAlchemyandChemistry

 

A Not-So-Lazy Henry: Heinrich Khunrath in his Laboratory 

Peter Forshaw

In 1595 Heinrich Khunrath of Leipzig (1560-1605), ‘Doctor of Both Medicines and Faithful Lover of Theosophy’, published the first edition of his elaborately illustrated Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae (Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom), with an improved and expanded posthumous edition published in 1609. There, and in other works, like On Primaterial Chaos (1597) and On the Fire of the Mages and Sages (1608), he promotes his belief in the necessity of jointly practising a threefold combination of Physico-Chymia, Divine Magic and Christian Cabala. Khunrath’s best-known engraving, the Oratorium-Laboratorium appears in many works as an example of the early modern laboratory space, but Khunrath has often been dismissed as an alchemical mystic, rather than someone with hands-on experience. Here we shall take a closer look at the alchemist in his laboratory, the kinds of alchemy that he practised, his interest in technological design, how he communicated his ideas, and a few examples of how his laboratory work was received. 

Apply for 2023 SHAC Award Schemes!

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SHAC Special ICHC13 Award Scheme – Grants to support attendance at ICHC13 in Vilnius, May 2023

Applicants are invited to apply for grants under a Special Award Scheme from the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC) to support attendance of early-career scholars and independent scholars at the 13th International Conference on the History of Chemistry in Vilnius, Lithuania on 23 May to 27 May 2023. Awards of up to £400 will be made as a contribution towards the cost of travel, accommodation, and registration fees for those giving a paper at the conference. Early-career scholars are defined as post-graduate students (both masters and doctoral students) and those who have obtained a PhD since January 2013. Given that the circumstances of independent scholars differ we are letting members ‘self-define’ and if there are any unclear cases it will be left to the discretion of the Awards Panel.

Applicants must be members of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry in good standing at the time of making an application and if successful through the period of the award. For more information and application forms please contact grants[at]ambix.org stating that you are applying for a grant to attend ICHC.

Details of how to join the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry can be found at https://www.ambix.org/subscription/ . Membership enquiries should be made to newjoiner[at]ambix.org

For further information on the conference – please visit: https://www.ichc2023vilnius.chgf.vu.lt/

The timescale for ICHC in Vilnius is as follows:

Deadline for submitting proposals: 1 December 2022

Notification of acceptance: January 2023

Provisional program: Early February 2023

Final program: April 2023

The deadline for applications to this Award Scheme is 28 February 2023. It is expected that applicants to will be advised of the outcome of their application in time to register for early-bird conference fees which are available until 1 April 2023.

An activity report must be submitted at the end of the conference. This will usually be published in SHAC’s Chemical Intelligence Newsletter.

Please note that applying for a Special ICHC13 Award does not preclude applying to the usual SHAC Award Scheme for 2023.

The SHAC 2023 Award Scheme will open on 1 March 2023 and close on 31 May 2023, with two types of award:

Research Awards: open to post-graduate students (both masters and doctoral students), those who have obtained a PhD within ten years of the preceding January and also to independent scholars. These awards are to support research.

Subject Development Awards: to support activities such as seminars, workshops, colloquia, lecture series, conference sessions, conferences, exhibitions and outreach activities that support either the history of chemistry or history of alchemy as academic subjects.

Call for Applications: Postgraduate Representative

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The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC) invites applications for Postgraduate Representative, a two- or three-year term to begin in January 2023.

As leader of SHAC’s extensive Graduate Network, the Postgraduate Representative serves as an advocate for early career scholars in the history of alchemy, chemistry, and related fields. They are chiefly responsible for designing, planning, and facilitating the Society’s Postgraduate Workshop, an annual international meeting that brings together early career researchers to network and present works in progress. The Postgraduate Representative also attends biennial Council meetings, where they serve as liaison between the Graduate Network and the Society’s leadership.

Eligibility: Applicants should be SHAC student members in good standing and currently enrolled in a PhD program or equivalent, with research interests in the history of alchemy, chemistry, or adjacent fields.

Please apply by submitting a cover letter and curriculum vitae to studentrep@ambix.org (Alison McManus) and a.simmons@ucl.ac.uk (Anna Simmons). The cover letter should include a brief biography and a synopsis of your PhD research project, including the length of your program and your stage within it. Please include ideas on how you intend to shape the Graduate Network and potential workshop topics of interest to historians of alchemy and chemistry. The Society especially welcomes suggestions for workshops that cross disciplines, geographies, and time periods.

Application deadline: October 30

“Humphry Davy in Naples” Online Seminar (29th Sept)

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The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Professor Frank James (University College London) who will present

Trying to Return Europe to the Ancien Régime: Humphry Davy in Naples Chemically Recovering Ancient Literature, 1817-1820

This will be live on Thursday 29 September 2022 beginning at 5.00pm BST (6.00pm CEST, 12 noon EDT, 9.00am PDT). The format will be a talk of 20-30 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion of half an hour.

As with the last seminar the Zoom link can be accessed by anyone, member of SHAC or not, via this following Eventbrite link.

Most previous on-line seminars can be found on the SHAC YouTube Channel.


Frank James

Chairman, SHAC

Synopsis:

Following the destruction of Herculaneum in 79CE after the eruption of Vesuvius, the library, now known as the Villa dei Papiri, remained untouched until the 1750s.Then around 2000 papyri, all in a very fragile state, were excavated. It was hoped that these rolls might contain many of the lost works of antiquity and much effort was put into unrolling them and transcribing the contents. Their fragility meant that work was painfully slow and from 1800 the Prince of Wales (later the Prince Regent and then George IV) began taking a strong personal interest in speeding up the process, boosted when the King of the Two Sicilies presented a few rolls to him in 1817. One of the members of the commission established with the task of unrolling, was the leading English chemist Humphry Davy. Davy, fresh from his success with the miners’ safety lamp, began to develop chemical methods of unrolling. His work met with sufficient success for the Prince Regent to personally command Davy to go to Naples to continue his work with the full support of the British state. In Italy Davy antagonised many of the savants in the Naples Archaeological Museum with his arrogance. Furthermore, once texts began to be transcribed, the thorny issue arose of who owned the intellectual property so produced. The most interesting feature to this whole story was the (unsuccessful) attempt, combining modern science and ancient literature, to restore something of the pre-1789 norms of courtly exchange between Hanoverian London and Bourbon Naples.