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| Ena Thompson
Lecture 2008 |
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The Pomona College Department of History is pleased to
announce our Ena H. Thompson lecturer for 2007-2008: Pamela
H. Smith, Professor of History at Columbia University, and
formerly a member of the Pomona College History Department
from 1990 to 2005.
Professor Smith will spend the week of 7-11 April 2008 at
Pomona discussing the issues of her current work in a series
of lectures and seminars entitled, “Making and Knowing:
Lived Experience and the Written Word in Early Modern
Europe.”
She will deliver two public lectures as part of the series:
Tuesday, 8 April, 11:00, in the Rose Hills Theatre
“Butter and Mercury, Lizards and Vermilion: Lived Experience
and Vernacular
Science”
Thursday, 10 April, 11:00, in the Rose Hills Theatre
“Knowledge in Transit in the Early Modern World”
More information about Pamela H. Smith:
Professor Smith specializes in the history of science and
the cultural and intellectual history of early modern
Europe. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Science
from The Johns Hopkins University, and she has held
fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Getty
Institute, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the
Wissenschaftskolleg—Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin,
and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among many
others. Her first book, The Business of Alchemy: Science and
Culture in the Holy Roman Empire, was awarded the Pfizer
Prize for the best book in the History of Science. The
American Historical Review called it “Spirited and
fascinating….This blending of the modern with the
traditional, the seamless knitting of commerce with princely
extravagance, alchemy with science, commerce, and industry,
stands as the major achievement of Smith’s portrait of
intellectual life….” Her second major book, The Body of the
Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution,
examines the development and influence of artisanal practice
and vernacular knowledge in Renaissance culture and the
transformations of science, art, philosophy, and knowledge
in the early modern period. Awarded the American Historical
Association’s Gershoy Prize for the best book in early
modern European history, The Body of the Artisan was
described by one reviewer as “a bold questioning of one of
Western culture’s most enduring divisions separating
intellectuals who work with their minds from artisans who
labor with their bodies. Smith offers a fresh view of both
the Scientific Revolution and northern renaissance art, one
that powerfully connects craft, alchemy, naturalism, and
experiment to a new materialistic epistemology.” She has
also co-edited two collections of essays on several aspects
of science, art, culture, and knowledge in early modern
Europe.
Professor Smith’s current major project is Making and
Knowing: The Reconstruction of Historical Experience. In
Professor Smith’s own description, “this book will treat the
methodological problem of understanding historical
experience, especially in cases when textual evidence is
scarce, as in the case, for example, of artisanal knowledge.
This book will examine the case studies of metalworking and
glassmaking in the early modern period (1400-1800) by
studying present-day and historical practices, objects,
recipes, and artisanal manuals in an attempt to reconstruct
the historical experience of working with natural materials.
The aim is not only to understand the material processes and
experience of the past, but also to gain insight into the
mental world of artisans and their understandings of
matter.”
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