CFP: Early Modern Experiment and its Communities (RSA 2015, Berlin)

Organizers: Dana Jalobeanu (University of Bucharest) and Cesare Pastorino (Center for the History of Knowledge and Technische Universität, Berlin)
 
Early modern experimentation took place in a wide variety of often overlapping disciplines, traditions and communities. At the same time, experimental practices and the very working definition of what counted as an experiment differed from one community to the other, being subject to received -and sometimes tacit- knowledge, practices and habits. Our sessions will investigate some of the very different environments where the rise of early modern experimental culture took place, specifically focusing on the ways in which communities shaped experimental practice and the notion of experiment. We welcome case studies from a variety of experimental groups and disciplines: to list but a few, early modern academies, networks of virtuosi, religious orders, physicians and apothecaries, naturalists, professors of secrets, alchemists, botanical experts, technical experimenters working in mines, arsenals, mints, ironworks, and so forth.

Please send a proposal of no more than 150 words (including keywords), plus a one page CV no longer than 300 words to Dana Jalobeanu ([log in to unmask] ) Cesare Pastorino ( [log in to unmask] )  by 4 June at the latest. Please also note that, according to the RSA guidelines, graduate students presenting at the meeting “should be in candidacy and are invited to speak on topics directly related to a dissertation for which the major research has already been done.”


Cesare Pastorino
Postdoctoral Fellow
Zentrum für Wissensgeschichte, Berlin and Technische Universität Berlin
http://cesarepastorino.wordpress.com