CFP: CHEMISTRY IN THE AMERICAS, 1400-1800
CHEMICAL HERITAGE FOUNDATION
CHEMISTRY IN THE AMERICAS, 1400-1800.
28th-29th April; Chemical Heritage Foundation, Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA, USA.
In early modern times historians used to say that the practice of
their art had two eyes, chronology and geography. Together these
envisioned the temporal and spatial extensions of the ordered sequences
of actions which come to form the record of human history. Even in such
basic terms, we nonetheless lack anything approaching coherent
narratives of the chemical arts and sciences as practiced on the
pre-modern American continent. This circumstance differentiates American
historiographies from those of European, Arabic and some eastern Asian
cultures, and thus provides a fundamental motivation for the topic of
the Cain Conference 2017. Whilst one conference cannot hope to supply
such whole and coherent narratives, we can nonetheless take practical
steps toward their provision, and so invite colleagues to submit
proposals for papers.
The beginning date of 1400 is specified so as to include the
possibility of papers focused on chemical practices in pre-Columbian,
pre-colonial, civilizations. The flexible end-point of 1800 is chosen to
include the possibility of papers on American aspects of the late
eighteenth century reformulation of chemical science associated with
Lavoisier, and also upon chemically-based developments in manufacturing
processes at the beginnings of the modern, industrializing age.
Chemistry itself is broadly defined for the purposes of the conference,
to include alchemy, and also the chemical arts, all practical techniques
employing qualitative transformations of matter. Colleagues may wish to
consider topics in relation to the following set of subjects, but these
are designed as suggestions only, and do not exclude other possible
subjects.
1. The Chemical Arts, most obviously but not limited to those related to
metallurgy, such as assaying, smelting and refining, and to pharmacy,
such as decoction and distillation, and more generally the chemical
compounding of medicines.
2. Atlantic transactions of knowledge and materials in this extensive
period of exploration, mineral prospecting and colonization.
3. Interactions of indigenous and colonial knowledges, and the political and religious contexts in which they occurred.
4. Archaeological and other trace evidences of chemical sites and
activities, e.g. pharmaceutical workshops, laboratories, metallurgical
and other chemical processes of production.
5. Alchemical concepts, practices and behaviours in their American settings.
6. Chemical manufactures.
7. Chemical education, including apprenticeships, colleges, universities.
8. Reception, use and adaptation of European systems of chemistry in
American settings. 9. Critical historiographical reflection
upon narratological and interpretive frameworks relevant to the
conference topic.
Colleagues wishing to submit proposals for conference papers should send
the paper title plus an abstract of no more than 300 words to Carin
Berkowitz (CBerkowitz@chemheritage.org) and John Christie (jrrc_@hotmail.com).
Closing date for submissions is 30th. October, 2016. The programme team
will produce a draft conference programme, organized into appropriate
panels, in January 2017.