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Early Modern Women and Alchemy, 1550-1700

Descripción del proyecto

El uso de la alquimia por parte de las escritoras británicas

Las mujeres representan el 30 % de la comunidad científica, según estadísticas de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura (Unesco). El objetivo de esta investigación es demostrar que el compromiso científico no es solo un fenómeno masculino, ya que existe una importante contribución femenina a la historia de la ciencia. El proyecto WALCHEMY, financiado con fondos europeos, se centra en la revolución científica británica de los siglos XVI y XVII y la participación de las mujeres en la alquimia (el arte de la transformación química). Los investigadores aducen que la expansión de la tipografía favoreció las publicaciones científicas sobre alquimia, la cual conocían muy bien las escritoras. Basándose en la literatura anglófona femenina, la investigación analizará la repercusión de la alquimia en las obras de estas escritoras.

Objetivo

In 2017 UNESCO pointed out that only 30% of the world’s scientific researchers are women. One reason for this low statistic (according to UNESCO) is the lack of visible female role models. Feminist scholars such as Sarah Hutton, Alisha Rankin and Meredith Ray have turned to the era of the European scientific revolution – the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – to investigate women’s contribution to the history of science. This research is important because it has spotlighted women scientists from the past and demonstrated that scientific enquiry is not simply a male phenomenon. There is, however, one area in the history of science that is noticeably understudied in relation to women writers but in which they were paradoxically most active: alchemy. Lyndy Abraham and Tara Nummedal have shown that alchemical knowledge – the craft of chemical transmutation, both physical and spiritual – was widely disseminated in this period because of the invention and flourishing of printing. I will concentrate on Anglophone female authors because scholars such as Stanton Linden and Robert Schuler have foregrounded a British male alchemical literary tradition, but have overlooked women’s participation in that tradition. I will produce the first in-depth book-length study to explore the influence of alchemy on early modern Anglophone female authors’ works. In so doing, my project seeks to recover a previously unrecognized female-authored alchemical culture that privileged the transformative power of the female mind, word, body and spirit. By adding the hitherto absent dimension of women’s literary thought and practice to our understanding of the alchemical and holistic mind-set of early modern Britain, this study will make a landmark contribution to the histories of science and women’s writing. As such, it will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in women’s engagement with science and the cross-fertilization between scientific discourses and literary language.

Régimen de financiación

MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF

Coordinador

UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN
Aportación neta de la UEn
€ 175 572,48
Dirección
RAPENBURG 70
2311 EZ Leiden
Países Bajos

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Región
West-Nederland Zuid-Holland Agglomeratie Leiden en Bollenstreek
Tipo de actividad
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Enlaces
Coste total
€ 175 572,48