On October 28, 2017, several members of the UConn Early Modern Studies community participated in “Encounters: Alchemy & Science” at the Hartford History Center sponsored by the Humility and Conviction in Public Life project at UConn in partnership with the Amistad Center for Art and Culture, the Hartford History Center, the Hartford Public Library, and the Wadsworth Atheneum. Debapriya Sarkar (English) and Walt Woodward (History) served on a panel of faculty experts for the event. Below is a wrap-up written for us by Debapriya Sarkar:

The public humanities event on “Encounters: Alchemy & Science” convened at the Hartford History Center centered around the relationships among science, alchemy, religion, and politics. The discussion aimed to use the art—or science, or esoteric practice—of alchemy to test the boundaries between modernity and pre-modernity. In order to facilitate a common starting point, participants (who ranged from members of the local community to students and faculty from UConn) began the session by reading short excerpts from Albertus Magnus’s writings on alchemy (13^th century), Fama Fraternitus (c. 1610-1614), and a “Letter from Jonathan Brewster to John Winthrop, Jr.” (January 31, 1656) (available here: http://hhc.hplct.org/encounters-alchemy-science/). These texts immediately exposed all attendees to some of the main issues of alchemy: the relation of art to nature, the importance of secret knowledge, the idea of perfection as it pertains to both religious and epistemological contexts, and contemporary disagreements about the usefulness of alchemy.

It was striking how quickly the common texts provoked a wide range of questions: what are the boundaries between “scientific knowledge” and “alchemical knowledge”? Who gets to be designated an “alchemist”? How does the practice of alchemy test the boundaries between “science” and “belief”? In a culture where alchemy was often related to fraud, were there avenues for policing or censoring it? How successful was alchemy in its goals? How do we reconcile the contradictory views, that alchemy was both the precursor to modern chemistry and a useless form of practical knowledge? How did alchemy become vital to discussions of perfection in the New World? What is the status of alchemy today, or—are there living alchemists? As our ensuing discussions made evident, the answers to these questions were often multifaceted. For instance, it is not always clear what the “success” of alchemy means—while alchemists might not have attained their final aim of transforming base metals into gold, they achieved enough changes in chemical reactions of entities to convince themselves that the translation of metals was possible.

While a significant portion of the discussion was devoted to the status of alchemy in the pre-modern period, one of the abiding concerns of the group centered around the relationship of the past to the present, or more specifically, how could our understanding of alchemy as a practice, or even as a way of being, shape our comprehension of our current social, political, and intellectual moment? To this end, we discussed topics like the centrality of religion or religious discourse in science—while pre-modern alchemists claimed that the alchemical perfection would mirror or fulfill God’s perfect creation, modern science explicitly distances itself from religious discussion. We also encountered how our concerns about changes in nature (for example, on the topic of climate change) forces us to grapple with competing points of view about knowledge and belief, in ways similar to those found in alchemical discourse. Thus, the discussion enabled us to see what while the specific problems faced by alchemists might not seem relevant, the larger questions of expertise, knowledge, faith, belief, and power that were central to the lives of alchemical practitioners resonate in surprising ways with our own understandings of intellectual, religious, and intellectual life.

From October 3-5, 2017, Celticists, historians, and literary scholars from both sides of the Atlantic gathered at UConn for “Re-Reading the Revolution: A Conference Launching Léamh: Learn Early Modern Irish (léamh.org)”. The purpose of the conference was four-fold: to launch the Léamh website for the public; to work together on some translations for the site; to bring together Celticists, historians, and literary scholars in one room to discuss how scholarship could be deepened through the greater use of Celtic language sources; and to examine what that could look like through a series of papers and roundtables about the mid-seventeenth century conflicts in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

The conference began with “One Day, One Text,” which brought together Celtic language scholars and learners to translate several texts for the Léamh website. Participants gathered both digitally and in-person at the UConn Hartford campus to learn about the Léamh site and to do some “hands on” work with it. The group worked on ‘Eireóchthar fós le cloinn gColla,’ which will be added to the site for public use at a later date. October 4 was dedicated to a series of research panels as well as the official launch of the Léamh website. The research panels—“Ireland and an Ghaeilge in an age of Revolution, 1630-1660,” “Wales and y Gymraeg in an age of Revolution, 1630-1660,” and “Scotland and an Ghàidhlig in an age of Revolution, 1630-1660”—presented a series of papers that demonstrated just how dynamic scholarship that incorporates Celtic language sources can be.

The final day of the conference consisted of roundtables focused on the themes of “culture and society,” “ideas, religion, and memory,” and “transnational perspectives.” Here panelists presented their views on the state of the field and how Celtic language sources can contribute to current scholarship, and then the floor was opened up for everyone in the room. There ensued lively conversations and speculations about where the field is headed, what new questions scholars can/should be asking, and how these issues affect graduate education and professionalization.

We’d like to thank everyone who participated in the conference, and invite you all to check out the Léamh website.

On September 7-9, Ken Gouwens (History) attended the Folger Institute’s Fall Symposium, “Thomas Nashe and His Contemporaries.” Below are his thoughts on the event:

This past weekend I was so fortunate as to participate in a symposium at the Folger on “Thomas Nashe and His Contemporaries,” a summit for scholars of the most exuberant and perversely creative of all Elizabethan wits. I was drawn to the event because my book-in-progress on monkeys and humans includes a chapter on “apes of Cicero” that closes with a discussion of the flyting (verbal jousting) between Nashe and the Ciceronian rhetorician Gabriel Harvey in the 1590s. I’ve returned home laden with useful bibliography, including a reference to Thomas Dekker’s Seven Deadly Sinnes of London, the fifth of which is “Apishnesse.” Who knew? Certainly not I, but soon I’ll see what I can glean from it!

This ranks among the most enriching symposia I have ever attended. For two days we were immersed in lively, congenial, and deeply learned conversations about a challenging author whose work has defied generic classification. Presiding over the sessions were the editors of a new critical edition of Nashe’s works, which Oxford University Press will publish as a six-volume set. We discussed subjects as diverse as editorial protocols, urban geography, the physical production and layout of pamphlets, the soundscapes of Nashe’s London, and the difficulties of interpreting a thinker equally comfortable with expressions of religious piety (in Christ’s Teares Over Jerusalem), playful eroticism (in The Choise of Valentines or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo)  and graphic descriptions of extreme violence (in The Unfortunate Traveller). While he consciously imitated the flamboyant Italian writer Pietro Aretino (known as “The Scourge of Princes”), in his prose Nashe can appear uncannily like Rabelais, whose works however he had not read.

How does a high-quality, inspiring symposium like this come to be? Certainly the organizers deserve great credit. The opening lecture, “Thomas Nashe’s London,” delivered jointly by Jenny Richards and Andrew Hadfield, set the stage beautifully. Participants ranged from second-year graduate students to professors who hold endowed chairs at major universities, and to the distinct credit of the latter, there was never any condescension. On the contrary, fledgling Elizabethanists (and non-Elizabethanists such as I) could float ideas knowing that they would not be shot down but instead could open up fresh lines of inquiry. Meanwhile, our gracious hosts Owen Williams and Elyse Martin did the Folger Institute proud: all ran smoothly. I’m immensely grateful for this opportunity. To anyone considering participating in the Institute’s offerings, I can only say, emphatically: Apply!