Founding Director Pamela Smith Awarded Getty Foundation Grant

The Center for Science and Society's Founding Director, Pamela Smith, and Tina Asmussen (Professor at Ruhr University, Bochum), have been awarded a three-year Getty Foundation Grant. Funds support research on "Minescapes: The Material Complex of Copper in Central Europe and Beyond."  

An interdisciplinary series of traveling seminars and workshops, based mainly in Slovakia, will focus on the most important copper mines in the early modern world (1300-1700), which supplied Renaissance Europe with copper for bronze cannons and sculptures. The project brings together historians, natural scientists, and art conservators who will move between archives of nature (mines, water systems, and forests) and society (libraries, natural history, and art collections) to foster a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between humans, materials, and the environment in mining landscapes. 

This project is made possible with support from the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories initiative. Congratulations to Pamela and Tina!