HomeCuriosity, Intellectual Enterprises and Scientific Explorations in the Writings of Women in the Early Modern Period (16th-18th centuries)

Curiosity, Intellectual Enterprises and Scientific Explorations in the Writings of Women in the Early Modern Period (16th-18th centuries)

Curiosité, entreprises intellectuelles et explorations scientifiques dans les écrits de femmes à l'époque moderne (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle)

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Published on Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Abstract

The subject of this international conference is the participation of women in the development of scientific ideas from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. It welcomes reflections on women’s intellectual contributions to the creation of the « Republic of Letters », and how female curiosity was connected to the development of a new rationality that opened new paths towards modern science, while simultaneously being stimulated by the marvellous and the strange, as was manifest in the creation of scientific cabinets and collections of rare objects. It aims at encouraging reflections on the concept of female scientific curiosity. This will allow us to discuss the construction of a female subjectivity emerged from new approaches towards collections of naturalia.

Announcement

18-19/11/2021

Organisation

CRINI-EA 1162 with the collaboration of the interdisciplinary seminar « Le Concert des Nations à l’époque moderne (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles) », CRINI, CRHIA, L’AMO (University of Nantes) and the research project :« Another Humanism: Gendering Early Modern Libertinism and the Boundaries of Subjectivity » (project funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond), Stockholm University (Sweden)

Argument

The subject of this international conference is the participation of women in the development of scientific ideas from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. It welcomes reflections on women’s intellectual contributions to the creation of the « Republic of Letters », and how female curiosity was connected to the development of a new rationality that opened new paths towards modern science, while simultaneously being stimulated by the marvellous and the strange, as was manifest in the creation of scientific cabinets and collections of rare objects. It aims at encouraging reflections on the concept of female scientific curiosity. Recent studies on women’s contribution to the cabinets of scientific curiosities has brought to light important dynamics hitherto unapproached in previous studies, showing major differences on the constitution of these collections, within different European

contexts3. This can open new paths for studying the different processes that led to the renovation of of knowledge in XVIth-century Europe, particularly regarding the concept of scientia. This will allow us to discuss the construction of a female subjectivity emerged from new approaches towards collections of naturalia, as female scientific curiosity became imbued with a profound sense of cultural and social transgression. The desire for knowledge ( libido sciendi), marked by an inclination towards the arcane and the secret, including experimentation with medical practices and recipes, and the use of poisons and drugs, will be discussed as an aspect of the emergence of a female scientific identity, trascending vana curiositas and contributing to the development of scientific discourse through women’s appropriation of libido sciendi.

Papers are welcome on the following (and related) topics :

  • Objects and instruments for the knowledge of nature found in curiosity cabinets.
  • Changing attitudes towards the understanding of nature based on transatlantic and transpacific exploration.
  • The study of nature as libido sciendi. Curiosity and secrecy on the verge of heresy.
  • Female scientific curiosity and the questioning of philosophical doctrines
  • Women lecturers and writings on natural history
  • Women and nature : natural history and natural philosophy as subjects of female curiosity in the scientific revolution
  • Female curiosity, experimentation, empiricism
  • Female curiosity and rhetorical expression
  • Women and scientific institutions, XVI-XVIIIth centuries.
  • Women and erudite networks.

This conference is part of the academic activities of the CRINI and the Seminar for Interdisciplinaryt Research « Le Concert des Nations à l’époque moderne » (CRINI, CRHIA, L’AMO). It is also part of the following resrarch project : ARCO, « The Arts of Concord in the Concert of Nations : Instituting Concord through Scientific Cooperation in the Modern Era » (since 2019).

Modalités de contribution

Please send 300-words proposals (lenght 30mn) and a brief biographical note to : karine.durin@univ-nantes.fr, conferencecuriositynantes@gmail.com ,

by 15/02/2021

Languages : English and French

Scientific Board

  • Pierre Carboni, CRINI
  • Nicolas Correard, L’AMO
  • Eric Schnakenbourg, CRHIA
  • Karine Durin, CRINI
  • Carin Franzén, Université de Stockholm, Suède
  • Nan Gerdes, Université Roskilde, Danemark
  • Susana Åckerman, Stockholm

Selected bibliography

Beugnot, B., « La Curiosité dans l’anthropologie classique », in U. Döring, A. Lyroudias, and R.Zaiser (eds.), Ouverture et dialogue: Mélanges offerts à Wolfgang Leiner, Tübingen, 1988, pp. 17–30.

Blair, A. , « Curieux, curieusement, curiosité », Littératures classiques, 47, 2003, pp. 101–7.

Bolufer, Mónica, « Medicine and the Querelle des Femmes in Early Modern Spain », Medical History Supplements, 29, 2009, pp. 86-106.

Céard, J. (ed.), La curiosité en France à la Renaissance, Paris, SEDES, 1986.

Cottegnies, Line, John Thompson, Sandrine Parageau, Women and Curiosity in Early Modern England and France, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2016.

Daston, L., and Park, K., Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–1750, New York, MIT Press, 1998. Evans, R.J. W., Alexander Marr, Curiosity and Wonder from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, Londonc, Ashgate, 2016.

Findlen, Paula, « Ideas in the Mind : Gender and Knowledge in the Seventeenth Century », Hypatia, vol. 17, n°1 (Winter 2002), pp. 183-196.

Goldgar, A., Impolite Learning: Conduct and Community in the Republic of Letters 1680–1750, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1995.

Harrison, Peter, « Curiosity, Forbidden Knowledge, and the Reformation of Natural Philosophy in Early Modern England », Isis, Jun. 2001, vol. 92 pp. 265-290.

Houdard, Sophie, Nicole Jacques-Chaquin (éd.), Curiosité et Libido Sciendi. De la Renaissance aux Lumières, Lyon, ENS Editions, 1998, 2 vol.

Kenny, Neil, The Uses of Curiosity in Early Modern France and Germany, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Labhardt, A., « Curiositas : Notes sur l’histoire d’un mot et d’une notion », Museum Helveticum, 1960, 17, pp. 206-224.

Long, Kathleen P., Gender and Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Culture, London, Ashagte, 2010. Pellegrin, Marie-Frédérique (ed.), « Penser au féminin au XVIIe siècle », Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, t. 203, n°3, juillet-septembre, 2013.

Pomata, Gianna, « Was there a Querelle des Femmes in Early Modern Medicine ? », Arenal, julio-diciembre 2013, 20 :2, pp. 314 -341.

Ray, Meredith, K., Daughters of Alchemy. Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, 2015.

Ross, Sarah Gwyneth, The Birth of Feminism. Woman as Intellect in Renaissance Italy and England, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, 2009.

Schiebinger, L., « Gender in Early Modern Science », in D. R. Kelley (ed.), History and the Disciplines: The Reclassification of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, New York, University of Rochester Press, 1997, pp. 319–34.

- « European Women in Science », Science in Context, 15 (4), 2002, pp. 473-481.

Schwartz,  Janelle  A.,      Nhora  Lucia  Serrano,  Curious Collectors, Collected Curiosities : An Interdisciplinary Study, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010.

Trotot, Caroline, C. Delahaye, I. Mornat, Femmes à l’oeuvre dans la construction des savoirs. Paradoxes de la visibilité et de l’invisibilité, Collection Savoirs en texte, laboratoire Littératures, Savoirs et Arts, Université Gustave Eiffel, 2020.

Whaley, Leigh, Women and the Practice of Medical Care in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1800, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Waller, Gary, The Female Baroque in Early Modern English Literary Culture : From Mary Sidney to

Aphra Behn, Amsterdam University Press, 2020 (jstor) : 2. The Female Baroque, pp. 47-74. Whitaker, K. « The Culture of Curiosity », in : Jardine, N., Scord. J.A, Spary E.C (eds.), Cultures of Natural History, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 75-90.

Notes

  • Concerning female patronage, see : Swann, Marjorie, Curiosities and Texts. The Culture of Collecting in Early Modern England, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001 ; Gaude-Ferragu, Murielle, Cécile Vincent-Cassy, La Dame de cœur. Patronage et mécénat religieux des femmes de pouvoir dans l’Europe des XIVe-XVIIe siècles, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016 ; Van Wyhe, Cordula, Isabel Clara Eugenia : Female Sovereignty in the Courts of Madrid and Brussels, Madrid, Centros de Estudios Europa Hispánica, 2011 ; Paranque, Estelle, Probasco Nate, Claire Jowitt, Colonization, Piracy and Trade in Early Modern Europe. The Roles of Powerful Women and Queens, London, Palgrave Macmilla, 2017.

Places

  • Amphithéâtre - Museum d'Histoire Naturelle
    Nantes, France (44)

Date(s)

  • Monday, February 15, 2021

Attached files

Contact(s)

  • Karine Durin
    courriel : karine [dot] durin [at] univ-nantes [dot] fr

Reference Urls

Information source

  • Karine Durin
    courriel : karine [dot] durin [at] univ-nantes [dot] fr

License

CC0-1.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

To cite this announcement

« Curiosity, Intellectual Enterprises and Scientific Explorations in the Writings of Women in the Early Modern Period (16th-18th centuries) », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Wednesday, January 13, 2021, https://doi.org/10.58079/15s5

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