Events
Cosponsors
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
- Moore Institute for the Humanities and Social Studies, National University of Ireland, Galway
In the early modern period, the emergence of travel as a means of information gathering on natural history, demography, government, and religion was accompanied by the use of questionnaires to orient observation. This conference investigates the development of techniques of information gathering of this kind and the networks on which they relied. Papers address the integral role of travel in the process of scientific exchange as well as to the ways that information itself traveled in British, French, Spanish, and Swedish contexts.
The conference is supported by generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (http://www.mellon.org) and by the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University, with the assistance of the Moore Institute for the Humanities and Social Studies, National University of Ireland, Galway. The “Texts, Contexts, Culture” project is funded under the Higher Education Authority, under PRTLI4.
Watch this conference on Vimeo.
Program
time9:00am - 9:30am EDT
Registration and Welcome
time9:15am - 10:45am EDT
Session 1: Home and Abroad in British Questionnaires
Chair: Eileen Gillooly, Associate Director of the Heyman Center for the Humanities; Elizabeth Yale (Western Carolina University) will give a talk titled, "Preparing the Ground: Topographical Query Lists and the Formation of 'Britain' as an Object of Scientific Study in the Seventeenth Century", Asheesh Siddique (Columbia University) will give a talk titled, "Questionnaires, Paperwork, and the Problem of Governance in the Late Eighteenth-century British Atlantic Enlightenment"
Daniel Carey
Professor of English
National University of Ireland, Galway
Eileen Gillooly
Executive Director
Heyman Center for the Humanities
Elizabeth Yale
Assistant Professor of History
Western Carolina University
Asheesh Siddique
Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities
University of Southern California
time11:00am - 11:30am EDT
Coffee Break
time11:30am - 1:00pm EDT
Session 2: Techniques of Inquiry in the 17th Century
Chair: Alan Stewart (Columbia University), Daniel Carey (National University of Ireland, Galway) will deliver a talk on John Locke’s anthropology of religion – questions and answers, Carl Wennerlind (Barnard College) will deliver a talk titled "Nature’s Secrets Revealed: Urban Hiärne’s Questionnaire and the Restoration of Atlantis"
Alan Stewart
Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Columbia University
Daniel Carey
Professor of English
National University of Ireland, Galway
Carl Wennerlind
Associate Professor of History
Barnard College
time1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
Lunch
time2:00pm - 3:30pm EDT
Session 3: Enlightenment Agendas
Chair: Dániel Margócsy (Hunter College, CUNY), Nicholas Dew (McGill University) will deliver a talk titled, “A Modell to regulate your Travels by: From Wish List to Expedition in the Early Enlightenment", Matthew Jones (Columbia University) will deliver a talk titled, "Re-inventing the (calculating) Wheel: Imitation, Emulation and Nescience in the Enlightenment"
Dániel Margócsy
Assistant Professor in the Department of History
Hunter College, City Univsersity of New York
Nicholas Dew
Associate Professor of History and Classical Studies
McGill University
Matthew L. Jones
James R. Barker Professor of Contemporary Civilization
Columbia University
time3:30pm - 4:00pm EDT
Coffee Break
time4:00pm - 5:30pm EDT
Session 4: The New World as an Object of Study
Chair: Martin J. Burke (CUNY), Ida Federica Pugliese (Marie Curie Fellow, NUI Galway) will deliver a talk titled, "An Inquiry into the 13 Colonies: Barbé-Marbois’s Queries and French Commercial Strategy During the American War of Independence", Cameron Strang (Penick Scholar, Smithsonian Institution) will deliver a talk titled, "Indian Vocabularies and Un-disciplining Knowledge in the Early United States"
Martin J. Burke
Associate Professor of History and American Studies
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Ida Federica Pugliese
Marie Curie Fellow
National University of Ireland, Galway
Cameron Strang
Doctoral Student in the Department of History
University of Texas at Austin
time9:00am - 9:15am EDT
Introduction and welcome
time9:15am - 10:45am EDT
Session 5: Travel, Observation and Population
Chair: Lynn Festa (Rutgers University), Ted McCormick (Concordia University) will deliver a talk titled,"Observations that Traveled: Graunt’s Observations and the Uses of Quantification in Cotton Mather’s New England", Joyce Chaplin (Harvard University) will deliver a talk titled, "T.R. Malthus, Travel Literature, and the World’s Populations"
Lynn Festa
Associate Director of Graduate Program and Associate Professor of English
Rutgers University
Ted McCormick
Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of History
Concordia University
Joyce Chaplin
James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History
Harvard University
time10:45am - 11:15am EDT
Coffee Break
time11:15am - 1:00pm EDT
Session 6: Early Modern Information Networks
Chair: Maria Portuondo (Johns Hopkins University), Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra (University of Texas at Austin) will deliver a talk titled, "Early Modern Networks and Contingency: Jesuits, Souls, Geopolitics, and Research Projects", Paula Findlen (Stanford University) will deliver a talk titled, "How Information Travels: Lessons From the Early Modern Republic of Letters", Ann Blair (Harvard University) will deliver closing commentary
Maria Portuondo
Associate Professor in the Department of History of Science and Technology
Johns Hopkins University
Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra
Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professor of History
The University of Texas at Austin
Paula Findlen
Ubaldo Pierotti Professor of Italian History
Stanford University
Ann Blair
Henry Charles Lea Professor of History
Harvard University
time1:00pm - 2:30pm EDT
Lunch
Participants
- Daniel Carey Professor of English National University of Ireland, Galway
- Eileen Gillooly Executive Director Heyman Center for the Humanities
- Elizabeth Yale Assistant Professor of History Western Carolina University
- Asheesh Siddique Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities University of Southern California
- Alan Stewart Professor of English and Comparative Literature Columbia University
- Carl Wennerlind Associate Professor of History Barnard College
- Dániel Margócsy Assistant Professor in the Department of History Hunter College, City University of New York
- Nicholas Dew Associate Professor of History and Classical Studies McGill University
- Matthew L. Jones James R. Barker Professor of Contemporary Civilization Columbia University
- Martin J. Burke Associate Professor of History and American Studies The Graduate Center, City University of New York
- Ida Federica Pugliese Marie Curie Fellow National University of Ireland, Galway
- Cameron Strang Doctoral Student in the Department of History University of Texas at Austin
- Lynn Festa Associate Director of Graduate Program and Associate Professor of English Rutgers University
- Ted McCormick Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of History Concordia University
- Joyce Chaplin James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History Harvard University
- Maria Portuondo Associate Professor in the Department of History of Science and Technology Johns Hopkins University
- Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professor of History The University of Texas at Austin
- Paula Findlen Ubaldo Pierotti Professor of Italian History Stanford University
- Ann Blair Henry Charles Lea Professor of History Harvard University