Category Archives: SHAC Meetings & Events

Spring 2026 Oxford Seminar in the History of Alchemy and Chemistry

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Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the Spring 2026 series of the Oxford Seminar in the History of Alchemy and Chemistry. Please find the programme below.

Oxford Seminar in the History of Alchemy and Chemistry

Convenors: Ellen Hausner (Oxford), Sergei Zotov (Warburg), and Jo Hedesan (Oxford)

The meetings take place between 3 pm and 5 pm at the Maison Française d’Oxford.  

13 May 2026

Session 1 — Life and Nature in Early Modern Alchemy
Chair: Sergei Zotov (Warburg Institute)

Oana Matei (Western University of Arad): Can Life Rise from Ashes? Discussions on the Possibility of the Palingenesis of Plants in the Seventeenth Century

Xinyi Wen (Warburg Institute): Cosmos or Coitus? A Copy Census of Oswald Croll’s Basilica Chymica, 1609–1690



20 May 2026

Session 2 — Spiritual Foundations of Alchemy
Chair: Ellen Hausner (Oxford)

Mark Edwards (Oxford): Ancient Alchemy as Philosophy

Charles Burnett (Warburg Institute): Alchemy as Divination

3 June 2026

Session 3 — Computational History of Alchemy and Chemistry
Chair: Rob Iliffe (Oxford)

Vojtěch Kaše (University of West Bohemia, Plzeň), and Sarah Lang (Max Planck Institute, Berlin): Tracing the Histories of Early Modern Conceptual Ecosystems: Remote Sensing Methods for the Archaeology of Alchemical Knowledge

Guillermo Restrepo (Max Planck Institute, Leipzig): Computational History of Chemistry: How Big Data Illuminates Macrohistorical Trends and Microhistorical Events

Best wishes,

Sergei Zotov

March Online Seminar “Defending the New Chemistry: The Columbian Chemical Society of Philadelphia, c. 1811-13”

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Professor John C. Powers (Virginia Commonwealth University) will present
Defending the New Chemistry: The Columbian Chemical Society of Philadelphia, c. 1811-13
This will be live on Thursday, 26 March 2026, beginning at 5.00pm (London time). The format will be a talk of 20-30 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion of half an hour.

From this seminar we are changing the system for registering to attend the event. To register please e-mail meetings@ambix.org with ‘SHAC on-line seminar’ in the subject line. You will then be sent a Zoom link on the morning of the seminar.

The seminar will be also accessible live on YouTube at:

https://youtube.com/live/ImYxiaJiNOQ?feature=share 

Most previous on-line seminars can be found on the SHAC YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/SocietyforHistoryofAlchemyandChemistry

Defending the New Chemistry: The Columbian Chemical Society of Philadelphia, c. 1811-13

John C. Powers

During the first decade of the 19th Century, several tenets of Lavoisier’s antiphlogistic chemistry had come under serious scrutiny through the work of Thomas Thomson, Humphry Davy and other British chemists.  Details of this work quickly crossed the Atlantic and became a topic of discussion and debate among American chemists and physicians.  In Philadelphia, two Professors of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, James Woodhouse (prof. 1795-1809) and John Redman Coxe (prof. 1809-18) embraced the British critiques of the new chemistry and exposed the new chemistry’s weaknesses to their students.  Coxe, in fact, published a book, Observations on Combustion and Acidification (1811) in which, following suggestions from Davy, he advocated a return to a version of the phlogiston theory.

In a curious twist, many chemistry and medical students in Philadelphia did not support their professors’ critical approach to the new chemistry.  In 1811 students founded the Columbian Chemical Society of Philadelphia, an organization which provided an outlet for them to present their own practical work in chemistry as well as refute claims which undermined Lavoisier’s views.  This talk will examine some of the papers by these students, who went on to have careers as prominent chemists or physicians, such as Thomas D. Mitchell, Franklin Bache, and James Cutbush, and provide some context regarding the ongoing debate over the new chemistry in the United States. 

Best wishes

Frank James

Chair SHAC

Online Seminar: Michael Bycroft, Gems and the Crafts in the Chemical Revolution

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Next SHAC on-line seminar, Thursday, 22 January 2026, 5pm (London Time)

The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Dr Michael Bycroft (University of Warwick) who will present:

Gems and the Crafts in the Chemical Revolution

This will be live on Thursday, 22 January 2026, beginning at 5.00pm (London time). The format will be a talk of 20-30 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion of half an hour.

As with recent seminars the Zoom link can be freely accessed by anyone, member of SHAC or not, by booking through the following Ticket Source link:
https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/society-for-the-history-of-alchemy-and-chemistry/shac-on-line-seminar-dr-michael-bycroft-university-of-warwick/e-zkzlqg

The seminar will be also accessible live on YouTube at:
rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2
When booking please ensure that you provide the e-mail address where you would like your link to be sent. Both links will go live just before the seminar.

Most previous on-line seminars can be found on the SHAC YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/SocietyforHistoryofAlchemyandChemistry

Gems and the Crafts in the Chemical Revolution
Michael Bycroft
Chemistry is inseparable from the chemical crafts. This is a commonplace in the historiography of chemistry. But what about the relationship between the crafts themselves? How were chemical ideas shaped by the interaction between different arts, trades and industries? I answer this question with respect to gemstones in European chemistry in the latter part of the eighteenth century. In this period, and not before, chemists found general procedures for dividing gems into their component substances. Miners, apothecaries, glass-makers, and porcelain-makers were all involved in this process, as well as jewellers and diamond-cutters. These interactions between crafts were not just a matter of generalization or juxtaposition. New kinds of analysis emerged when two or more crafts interacted. Chemistry was greater than the sum of its crafts.

Oxford talk: Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent on Michel Serres

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‘Michel Serres, historian of science despite himself’

Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Emeritus Professor, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

9 April 17:00

Maison Française d’Oxford

Abstract:

In 1969 Michel Serres was elected professor in the history of science at University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne where he served until 1989. However, this mathematician turned philosopher considered this election as a mistake or even a mischief and he never endorsed the role of historian. He taught the history of science in spite of himself although he was an expert in this domain, unlike Sganarelle, the Doctor in spite of himself staged by Molière. For him, teaching the history of science was a way to reconcile his two passions for science and literature.

In this paper I will outline three aspects of Serres’s unorthodox view of the history of science: i) there is no rigid boundary between science, fable and myths; ii) science generates a time of its own that is neither amenable to the arrow of progress nor to a timeline; iii) his history science raises a philosophical question: who are the subjects of knowledge?

https://mfo.web.ox.ac.uk/event/shac-spring-meeting-remembering-bill-brock-chemistry-and-culture

SHAC Spring meeting “Remembering Bill Brock”

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SHAC Spring meeting “Remembering Bill Brock: Chemistry and Culture“

10 April 2026

Arranged with and at the Maison Française d’Oxford, 2-10 Norham Road, Oxford, OX2 6SE

This meeting is being held to commemorate the life, work and legacy of William Hodson Brock (1936-2025), who spent his entire career at the University of Leicester. Sometime chair of SHAC and editor of its journal Ambix, Brock was one of the leading historians of chemistry in his time, writing the Fontana/Norton History of Chemistry, as well as biographies of William Crookes, Justus von Liebig and Henry Edward Armstrong. (An extended obituary can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00026980.2025.2489298). The papers to be presented at this meeting take their starting point from Brock’s work and historical interests.

9.30Registration and Coffee 
9.55Welcome:  Stéphane Van Damme, MFO, and Frank James, SHAC
10.00First Brock Award Lecture:Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Université Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne             The history of chemistry through the lens of materials. A very             short introduction
10.45Session 1:Alan Rocke, Case Western Reserve University:             The Best of Frenemies: Liebig and Dumas (A Tribute to William             H. Brock)
11.15Coffee 
11.45Session 2:Eira H. Betthell (Booth), University of Essex:             From Laboratory to Library: Bill Brock’s Prolific Writing as             Chemical Practice Matthew Daniel Eddy, Durham University:             A Context for Colonial Chemistry: Thinking with Bill Brock             about the Biomedical Relevance of Dr J. A. B. Horton’s             Experiments on the Soil of Sierra Leone Georgiana D. Hedesan, University of Oxford: The Foundation of the Society for the Study of Alchemy and Early Chemistry in 1935: Between Historical Research and the Transmutational Paradigm Michael Jewess, Independent Scholar:             Working with Bill: Robert Fergus Hunter (1904-1963)
13.15LunchNot provided but there are some good pubs nearby
14.30Tribute from the Brock family:Susannah Ahluwalia, Gareth Brock and Benjamin Brock
14.50Session 3:Julia Carr-Trebelhorn, University of Cincinnati: Burning Diamonds: Lavoisier, Guettard, and the 1771 Development of Reduction Firing and Hard-Paste Porcelain in Paris John R.R. Christie, University of Oxford: Commerce, Manufacture and Practical Chemistry in 18th–            Century Britain Robert Bud, Science Museum/UCL:             Poison gas and Art Deco: analysing early 20th century             ambivalence about chemistry
16.00Coffee 
16.20Session 4:Robin Mackie, Open University and Gerrylynn K Roberts, Independent Scholar: Counting the British Chemical Community, 1881-1971:             Opening the ‘Black Box’ Annette Lykknes, Norwegian University of Science and Technology:             Crookes’ Vis Generatrix in teaching and learning
17.15 Closing remarks
17.20End of meeting 

There is no charge for this meeting, but please let Frank James, frank.james@ucl.ac.uk, know if you wish to attend.

More information: https://mfo.web.ox.ac.uk/event/shac-spring-meeting-remembering-bill-brock-chemistry-and-culture

Online Seminar “From Sacred Plants to Golden Wine”

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The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Dr Stefania Buosi-Moncunill (University of Barcelona) who will present:

From Sacred Plants to Golden Wine: The Alchemist’s Art of Healing


This will be live on Thursday, 27 November 2025, beginning at 5.00pm (London time). The format will be a talk of 20-30 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion of half an hour.


As with recent seminars the Zoom link can be freely accessed by anyone, member of SHAC or not, by booking through the following Ticket Source link:

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/society-for-the-history-of-alchemy-and-chemistry/shac-on-line-seminar-dr-stefania-buosi-moncunill-university-of-barcelona/e-aggypq 

The seminar will be also accessible live on YouTube at

https://studio.youtube.com/video/pKzs1vW2Dxg

Both the Zoom and YouTube links will go live just before the seminar

Most previous on-line seminars can be found on the SHAC YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/SocietyforHistoryofAlchemyandChemistry

From Sacred Plants to Golden Wine: The Alchemist’s Art of Healing

Stefania Buosi-Moncunill

This presentation explores the many healing dimensions of medical alchemy as it was practiced within the Occitan-Catalan school of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. It is based on extensive archival and philological research and forms part of the forthcoming collected volume The Medical Legacy of Medieval Alchemy: Elixirs, Healing Waters, and Precious Stones (Palgrave, 2025), co-edited with Lawrence M. Principe (Johns Hopkins University).

At the heart of the Occitan-Catalan medico-alchemical tradition lies the idea of a medicina integralis, a holistic vision in which the healing of the body and the regeneration of the spirit converge in a single quest for harmony with the cosmos. Remedies such as theriac, aurum potabile, and the elixir were not mere pharmacological compounds, but true thresholds of transformation leading toward deeper states of balance and knowledge.

Best regards

The SHAC Officers

Remembering Bill Brock – CfP SHAC Meeting 10 April 2026

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William ‘Bill’ Hodson Brock (1936-2025) was one of the leading historians of chemistry of the last fifty years. As Chair of SHAC and editor of Ambix he played a major role in the Society from the 1960s to the 2000s. He also wrote on the history of publishing, education and many other aspects of nineteenth-century science and culture, publishing in 1992 The Fontana/Norton History of Chemistry, a general history of chemistry from antiquity to the present.

To commemorate his life, work and legacy, SHAC is organising a one-day meeting to be held on Friday 10 April 2026 at the Maison Française d’Oxford.

Offers of papers (including a short abstract) related in some way to Brock’s work should be sent to Frank James (frank.james[at]ucl.ac.uk) by 30 November 2025.