Simon Werrett, University College London
Chemical Heritage Foundation - Rohm and Haas Fellow in Focus Lecture series (Philadelphia, PA)
Time: 6:00 p.m. lecture, 7:00 p.m. reception
Location: Chemical Heritage Foundation
315 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Event Type: Open to the Public
Fee: Free
RSVP Online: Registration Required -- Please register here
Today it would seem impossible to do science without highly specialized equipment and laboratories. Yet in the 17th and 18th centuries “experimental philosophers” routinely set up laboratories inside the kitchens and cellars of their homes and used a wide range of domestic furnishings and utensils to make investigations into nature. Using CHF’s remarkable collection of paintings and engravings of early modern laboratories, this presentation will explore the diverse and ingenious means by which experimenters turned the objects and rooms found in their homes to scientific advantage. Their methods offer lessons for a more sustainable style of science in the future.
Simon Werrett is a senior lecturer in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London (UCL), where he teaches the history of early modern science. Before coming to UCL he was an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Washington, Seattle. Werrett has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and the Getty Research Center in Los Angeles. He was a fellow of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich in 2011 and is a visiting fellow at the Chemical Heritage Foundation and Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in 2016. Werrett’s research explores the history of science through practice and material culture, particularly the ways that craft techniques such as painting, fountain making, architecture, fireworks, and music have served as resources for developing scientific inquiries. His first monograph, Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Sciences in European History, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2010.
The Rohm and Haas Fellow in Focus Lecture series gives the Beckman Center’s scholars an opportunity to present their work to a broad audience interested in history, science, and culture.
Fellow in Focus programs are presented by CHF’s Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry, home to CHF’s fellowship program and the heart of academic programming within the organization.
CHF gratefully acknowledges June Felley for her generous support of the Rohm and Haas Fellow in Focus lecture series.
More information.
For more information about this event, please contact Alison Roseberry-Polier at 215.873.8280 or aroseberry-polier@chemheritage.org.