BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Material substitutions in historical perspective: the cases of the
  British Substitutes and Vegetable Drugs Committees during World War Two -
  Mat Paskins (London School of Economics)
DTSTART:20181101T153000Z
DTEND:20181101T170000Z
UID:TALK110323@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Agnes Bolinska
DESCRIPTION:In this talk\, I discuss two British government committees whi
 ch were tasked during World War Two with the solution of finding substitut
 es for materials which had been made scarce by the war: the Substitutes Co
 mmittee of the Ministry of Supply\, and the Vegetable Drugs Committee of t
 he Ministry of Health. I argue that these bodies cast a suggestive light o
 n problems of 20th-century chemical governance in Britain\, and the long h
 istory of attempts at material substitution by scientific means. The emine
 nt industrialists and academic chemists who made up the Substitutes Commit
 tee ended up fighting a war chiefly of quotidian materials\, trying to sol
 ve problems of degreasing wool\, seeking replacements for leather\, and wo
 rrying over the wide introduction of plastics. At the same time\, their co
 mmittee was tightly integrated into both government and private sector mec
 hanisms of production and supply\, and they boasted of being able to coord
 inate otherwise unrelated substitution efforts. They also speculated on a 
 number of possible novel uses for colonial surpluses. The Vegetable Drugs 
 Committee\, meanwhile\, was a remarkably diffuse entity which was torn bet
 ween trying to provide support for voluntary collection of wild British pl
 ants\, and ambitious schemes for complete self-sufficiency in drug product
 ion throughout the British Empire.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR