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SUMMARY:Tender curiosities: natural history and gendered knowledge-craft a
 t country houses\, counting houses\, and Royal African Company factories -
  Elizabeth Yale (University of Iowa)
DTSTART:20211129T130000Z
DTEND:20211129T140000Z
UID:TALK163225@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Olin Moctezuma
DESCRIPTION:In Britain in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries\, h
 ouseholds were key sites for developing scientific\, medical\, and other f
 orms of learned knowledge. At the same time\, Britons collected natural hi
 storical and medical know-how—and materials—as part of the trans-Atlan
 tic trade in spices\, sugar\, luxury goods\, and enslaved West African lab
 orers. Yet how were households connected to Royal African Company ships\, 
 merchants’ offices\, and coastal African slave factories in networks of 
 knowledge and mercantile profit? One way\, I argue\, is through women’s 
 paper keeping activities. In learned households\, women recorded experimen
 tal results and observations\; managed correspondence\; archived and prese
 rved papers\; translated scientific texts\; took and maintained reading no
 tes\; and edited\, authenticated\, and published scientific books. They ge
 nerated records that transited between households and public institutions\
 , between learned\, medical\, and mercantile users\, accruing different ki
 nds of value in different hands. In reading these records closely\, we see
  how early modern Britons—both men and women—sought out and built on W
 est African and indigenous Caribbean botanical and medical knowledge even 
 while erasing enslaved and free Africans and indigenous people as knowers.
LOCATION:Zoom
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