'Chemistry and pharmacy in the colonial world' to be held at Oxford Brookes University 13th May 2010 (360G-Wellcome-091644_Z_10_Z)

Intellectual historians cannot ignore the role played by alchemical practices (experiments, theories, circulation of books and manuscripts, constitution of networks covering the entire European continent and several early colonial settlements) in the agenda of Early Modern learning. Equally, studies published over the last twenty years have much contributed to the appreciation of the role of chemistry in the constitution of research practices in science, technology and medicine, and to the key social and intellectual role played by practitioners of chemistry during the 18th and 19th centuries. Finally, business historians or historians of innovation (including therapeutic innovation) can hardly escape confronting the complex interactions between university and industrial research on a continental and intercontinental level throughout the 20th century. The main goal of the joint Oxford History of Chemistry Seminar series, of which this session is to be a part, is therefore to explore and assert the centrality of the history of chemistry to a variety of research areas dealing with the social, intellectual and economic history of Europe (and beyond) over the last five centuries.