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SUMMARY:The Curious Martin Folkes (1690–1754): sociability and collectin
 g in the mid-18th century - Martha Homfray-Cooper (Faculty of History)
DTSTART:20181105T130000Z
DTEND:20181105T140000Z
UID:TALK110347@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Laura Brassington
DESCRIPTION:Martin Folkes\, President of the Royal Society and of the Soci
 ety of Antiquaries\, has not been treated kindly by historians. He has eit
 her been seen as an aristocratic menace to the progress of 18th-century sc
 ience or else ignored completely. And yet his contemporaries awarded him p
 restigious scientific positions. The vast majority of contemporary voices 
 praised him for his involvement in a wide variety of sciences – antiquar
 ianism\, numismatics\, mathematics\, astronomy and natural history. The di
 sconnect between the negative picture of Folkes as drawn by historians and
  contemporaries' more positive testimonies requires explanation. This talk
  examines Folkes's correspondence networks\, his possessions\, and his tra
 vels around Europe. Contemporaries had a set of criteria for what counted 
 as good science very different to that which scholarship presumes. In the 
 first half of the 18th century\, good science shifted from being about sin
 gular\, one-off curiosities to valuing large collections of knowledge. Fol
 kes was fundamental to encouraging and modelling this shift. Science was n
 o longer about finding the unique\; it was now about building large collec
 tions and ordering them. Folkes simultaneously collected various objects a
 nd European-wide correspondents and he himself conformed wonderfully to th
 e criteria of good science which he helped to shape. This talk seeks to re
 construct how he successfully self-fashioned himself as the Curious Martin
  Folkes and how this relates to mid-18th century scientific practices.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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