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SUMMARY:Watering plants\, drying specimens: the Calcutta Botanical Garden 
 and its fraught relationship with moisture (c.1864–c.1900) - Marine Bell
 égo (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales\, Paris)
DTSTART:20180507T120000Z
DTEND:20180507T130000Z
UID:TALK104878@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Sebestian Kroupa
DESCRIPTION:Created at the end of the eighteenth century\, the Calcutta Bo
 tanical Garden was an important element of the network of imperial gardens
  that served economic and political enterprises of the Raj. In the ninetee
 nth century\, it became a centre where plants were nursed\, grew\, transit
 ed\, fell sick and often died. Some plants were dried in order to be incor
 porated into the herbarium\, the place which was considered the most 'scie
 ntific' by the British botanists who claimed to run the garden. Growing pl
 ants and drying them both implied controlling quantities of water and mois
 ture\, a task that was seen as particularly difficult in what the garden's
  administration called an 'Indian context'. Plants in the ground were subj
 ect to drought\, plants in pots fell victims to overwatering\, and herbari
 um specimen were never dry enough. Regulating water was all the more neces
 sary as the garden was situated on the bank of the Hooghly\, an arm of the
  Ganges\, and was frequently subject to floods. I argue that this constant
  and sometimes obsessional preoccupation with moisture expressed the failu
 re of the imperial claim to reduce 'place' to 'context'\, especially durin
 g the period of 'High Imperialism' that characterised the last quarter of 
 the nineteenth century.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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