Conference - Alchemy and Print Culture

The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry’s next meeting, Alchemy and Print Culture, will be held on Saturday 30th June 2018 in room 728 at the UCL Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London.

ALCHEMY AND PRINT CULTURE PROGRAMME

10.00: Registration.

10.30-11.30: Didier Kahn (CNRS/Université Paris-Sorbonne): “Willem Silvius and the publication of Denis Zecaire and Bernardus Trevisanus in the context of the sixteenth-century alchemical publishing movement.”

11.30-12.30: Peter J. Forshaw (University of Amsterdam): “Arcana Illustrata: Early Modern Alchemical Image Cycles in Print.”

12.30-13.00: SHAC Annual General Meeting.

13.00-14.30: LUNCH BREAK. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide lunch at this meeting but there are various cafés and restaurants nearby

14.30-15.30: Jennifer M. Rampling (Princeton): “From Script to Print, and Back Again: The Making of Elias Ashmole’s Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652).”

15.30-16.30: Stephen Clucas (Birkbeck, University of London): “E bibliotheca nostra Typographis: the Nuremberg printer Johannes Petreius and the promotion of alchemy.”

16.30: Meeting ends. 

he meeting fee is £10 for SHAC and RSC Historical Group Members, otherwise £15. Further information and a registration form can be found at http://www.ambix.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Alchemy-and-Print-Culture-Flyer-1.pdf

Seminar - Emblematic Alchemy

Tara Nummedal (Brown University) will speak at the History and Philosophy of Science Departmental Seminar on Thursday, 9 February at 3:30pm on:

Emblematic alchemy: Michael Maier's Atalanta fugiens (1617/18)

Written by the German physician, courtier and alchemist Michael Maier, Atalanta fugiens (1617/18) offers its readers an alchemical interpretation of the Classical myth of Atalanta as a series of fifty emblems, each containing an image, motto and epigram (in German and Latin), an accompanying fugue (or canon) for three voices, and a Latin discourse explicating the emblem's alchemical meaning. The parts of each emblem and the 214-page quarto book as a whole are meant to work together, with the music, image and text as an interlocking guide to alchemical theory and to the production of the philosophers' stone. In this talk, I will explore the role of sight and image in Maier's alchemical epistemology and situate his book in the visual culture of early modern European alchemy.

Tea and biscuits will be available from 3pm in Seminar Room 1

Seminar Location:
Seminar Room 2
Department of the History and Philosophy of Science
Free School Lane
Cambridge
CB2 3RH

Following the talk we will go to the pub, and on to dinner.

All are welcome!

If you would like to join dinner, please contact Daniel Margocsy (dm753@cam.ac.uk).

Links - Shakespeare and science

The always-interesting Whewell's Gazette round-up of history of science, technology, and medicine articles on the internet has collected several pieces on Shakespeare and science published in celebration of this week's 400th anniversary:

• Royal College of Physicians: ‘Rapt in secret studies’: was Shakespeare’s Prospero inspired by John Dee?
• Hyperallergic: The Poisons, Potions, and Charms of Shakespeare’s Plays
• The Irish Astronomical Journal: The Astronomy of Shakespeare
• Nature: Tudor technology: Shakespeare and science
• Wellcome Collection Blog: The humours in Shakespeare
• Faith and Wisdom in Science: Shakespeare and the Scientific Imagination
• The Renaissance Mathematicus: Was Will a Copernican?
• astro.ic.ac.uk: Shakespeare’s astronomy
• Smithsonian.com: Was Shakespeare Aware of the Scientific Discoveries of His Time?
• Youtube: Next – Aardman Animations (Lip Synch)

Play - The Alchemist

The Alchemist is on at the ADC next week - a few Science and Literature people are going to see it on Wednesday 21st, if anyone else wants to join us? Further details (and tickets) here.

The Marlowe Society presentsThe Alchemist
by Ben Jonson
Tuesday 20th April - Saturday 24th April
£9-£6

The world famous Marlowe Society return to the ADC Theatre to bring to life Jonson’s finest
masterpiece.


Living in a stolen house, Face, Subtle and Doll Common are making themselves a fortune.


Imagine a London where the desire for money (as well as certain other vices) drives individuals to believe the most outrageous things. Imagine a London where this indulgent philosophy leads its residents into farcical and extraordinary situations.
Jonson wrote The Alchemist to satirize the London of his time but his precise and
enlightened depiction of humanity remains scarily relevant today.


Our three ‘heroes’ are master con-artists. Employing a spectacular array of characters and costumes they entice, seduce, befuddle and hustle their way through Jonson’s most colorful and eclectic collection of characters with hilarious results. The Alchemist is often thought of as one of the greatest comedies of all time and the Marlowe Society’s 2010 production supports this in every possible way.


If laughter is what you need then head back 400 years and see London for how it really was... or is. Full of the funniest fools one could ever imagine. The con is on!