SHAC Spring Meeting ‘From Antique to Early Modern Alchemy: New Approaches, New Horizons’

You are invited to attend the SHAC Spring Meeting ‘From Antique to Early Modern Alchemy: New Approaches, New Horizons’ held on 28 and 29 May 2024 at Maison Française d’Oxford.   The meeting will host panels on topics that include ancient perfume making in Egypt and Assyria, alchemical symbolism and imagery, the use of new techniques such as machine learning for the history of alchemy or practical experimentation and furnace reconstructions. Please see programme attached for more information.  

The keynote speaker is Prof Jennifer M. Rampling (Princeton), who will talk on “Alchemical Monsters”.   Attendance is free but registration is required. Please register at the following link: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/society-for-the-history-of-alchemy-and-chemistry/t-nogqvop.  

The event will also be hosted in hybrid format. A hybrid link will be provided about a week prior to the event.   Please note the meeting ends at 1pm on 29 May. It is followed up by another related (and free) event, the Oxford Seminar in the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, ‘Meissen Coloration and Pacific Chemical Medicine’, featuring Nicholas Zumbulyadis (Delaware) and Mariana Sanchez (Paris), from 3pm to 5pm at Maison Française d’Oxford.

This is an in-person only meeting.  

Oxford Double Book Launch

We are pleased to announce a double book launch event, to celebrate the
publication of two books by distinguished and long-serving historians of
science and chemistry.


Thomas Garnett: Science, Medicine, Mobility in Eighteenth-Century
Britain (Bloomsbury) by Robert Fox Emeritus Professor of History of
Science, Oxford, published in February 2024.


Carbon: A Biography (Polity), the English translation of Carbone. Ses vies,
ses oeuvres (2018, Ed. Seuil) by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent Emeritus
Professor Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Sacha Loeve
(Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3), to be published in June 2024.


The launch will be held in the Salon at the Maison Française, Norham Rd.,
Oxford, 5-6pm, on Wednesday 22nd May, following the first meeting of the
Oxford Seminar in the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (3pm-5pm
Maison Française), where Bernadette will be delivering a paper entitled
‘Why a Biography of Carbon?’


Organizers: Jo Hedesan (georgiana.hedesan@history.ox.ac.uk)
John Christie (jrrc_@hotmail.com)