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Ena Thompson Lecture 2008

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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Ena Thompson Lectureship |  History Department & Religious Studies Library
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