Plantes exotiques et médicaments au début de l'époque moderne

Materia medica on the move. Collecting,
trading, studying, and using exotic plants in the early modern period

Call for papers

Leiden, 15-17 April 2015

The Descartes Centre for the History and Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, Huygens
ING, and Naturalis Biodiversity Centre will host a three-day conference on the circulation of knowledge regarding non-European plants and plant components, to which therapeutic properties were attributed in the early modern period (1500-1800). The conference will take place 15-17 April
2015 and will be hosted at Museum Boerhaave and Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in Leiden. In recent years the history of exotic plantshas received substantial attention from scholars in a range of disciplines. The various contexts and perspectives from whichplants can be studied (e.g. medicinal, scientific,socio-cultural, ethnobotanical) have led to muchcross-disciplinaryresearch of historians of science, pharmacists,ethnobotanists, and the like. The conference intendsto provide a platform for researchers in the field: to provide an overview of current research initiatives, and to exchange insights and ideas about the knowledge, trade,and uses of plantsin the past.During the conference renowned scholars, including dr. Florike Egmond (Leiden University) and prof. Harold Cook (Brown University),will deliver keynote lectures on the circulation of pharmaceutical and botanical knowledge in the early modern period.We invite early and mid-career researchers to submit portions of their work in progress,to be discussed in thematic parallel sessions.

Themes to be addressed include (but are not limited to):
•Productionof botanical and pharmaceutical knowledge(e.g. ethno botanical aspects;the practice of colonial botany inuniversities,botanical gardens,herbalsetc.)

•Intermediaries and bodies in the transfer and commodification of botanical and pharmaceutical knowledge, and the networks between these entities(e.g. merchants, trade companies, apothecaries, and botanists, but also ships, warehouses, and markets)
•The appropriationof botanical and pharmaceutical knowledge (e.g. in spaceslike apothecary shops, universities orbotanical gardens;experiments with new plan tcomponents; thetransition from medicine to food to stimulant or vice versa)

•The trajectoriesof individual drugs (e.g.theirpositioning on the early modern medical market:acceptation, commercialization, or rejection;the vicissitudes of everyday practice: finding, describing, drawing, cultivating, producing, distributing, trading, sending, shipping,selling, auctioning, processing, using,testing and evaluating exotic plant components)We encourage presentations that utilize digital methodsfor the history of botanyand pharmacy(e.g. digital visualizations of pharmaceutical networks). We also encourage presentations that are based onnon-printed and/or non-textual cultural and scientific heritage (e.g. letters, cabinets of curiosities, collections of materia medica,herbals, medical chests, etc.


Organization and contact
Abstracts should contain no more than 400 words (for 15 minute presentations) and should be sent
before 15 November 2014 to Peter van den Hooff (Descartes Centre) at p.c.vandenhooff@uu.nl
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The conference fee is  €100,=.
Please be aware, that this fee does not include accommodation.
MA - students may apply for a reduced conference fee of €50,=

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The conference is  organized by the Descartes Centre for the History and Philosophy of the Sciences
and the Humanities, Huygens ING,and Naturalis Biodiversity Centre and is made possible by project
TIME CAPSULE and Museum Boerhaave.