Oxford Seminar in the History of Alchemy and Chemistry

The 2017 Oxford Seminar in the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will take place at the Maison Francaise d’Oxford (2-10 Norham Rd, OX2 6SE) between 3pm-5pm on 3 May, 10 May, 17 May and 14 June. The seminar is free of charge, and anyone with an interest in the history of alchemy, chemistry, medicine or the sciences is invited to attend. The format is two or three papers followed by a Questions & Answers session. Participants are also invited to join us for a drink afterwards, and/or dinner with the speakers. 

3 May: 17^th Century Chymistry in England

Chair:  Jo Hedesan (Oxford)

Haileigh Robertson (York)

Robert Boyle’s Experiments with Gunpowder: From the Battlefield to the Laboratory

Anna Marie Roos (Lincoln)

Chymical Teaching in Early Modern Oxford: From Wilkins to Whiteside

10 May: Alchemy and Religious Orders in Early Modern Italy

Chair: John Christie (Oxford)

Neil Tarrant (Edinburgh)

Censoring Alchemy: Thomist-Augustinian Censorship in the Roman Inquisition

Andrew Campbell (UCL)

Playing with Fire: The Constitutional Status of Alchemy in Italian Religious Orders at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century

Lorenza Gianfrancesco (Chichester)

Alchemy in Early Modern Naples

17 May: 18^th Century Chemistry in Britain

Chair: John Perkins (Oxford Brookes)

Katherine Allen (Oxford)

‘Furnish Herself of Very Good Stills’: Distilling Household Medicine in Eighteenth-Century England

John Christie (Oxford)

Make your Own Volcano: Early Modern Alum Production in Britain

14 June: ‘Methodologies for the History of Contemporary Chemistry’

Chair: Michael Jewess (Independent)

Muriel Le Roux (ENS/CNRS) and Ludovic Halby (MFO/CNRS)

For more information, questions or directions to the venue, please feel free to contact me.