Events

Past Event

Pamela H. Smith - Lizards, Metals, Stones, and Sands: Practical Investigations and Vernacular Knowledge Systems in Early Modern Europe

March 2, 2023
5:30 PM - 8:00 PM
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Grant Hall, Queen's University, 43 University Ave, Kingston, Canada

Event Description

Numerous remedies and techniques in early modern Europe (1400-1750) emerged out of vernacular usage and were subsequently transmitted upward to texts and text-based regimes of professional training. Such practices have often been seen as the result of so-called trial and error processes. This view, however, does not do justice to the practical material investigations of kitchens and workshops, nor to the larger knowledge systems and “material imaginaries” of natural generation and transformation that underpinned these practices. Drawing evidence from the Making and Knowing Project’s research on practical and craft knowledge, this lecture will illustrate such practical investigations and vernacular knowledge systems and argue for new narratives in the history of knowledge.

Event Speakers

Pamela H. Smith, Seth Low Professor of History and Founding Director of the Center for Science and Society at Columbia University

Event Information

Free and open to the public; registration required. For more information, please visit the event webpage

Hosted by the Department of History at Queen's University.