| 23 Jun 2020 | 4:00pm - 6:00pm | CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DT | |
- Description
Description
All are invited to join us for this event in the ‘cum panis’ seminar series, hosted by gloknos at CRASSH. The ‘cum panis’ seminars are a space to share work currently in progress and break bread (or cake!) with new intellectual companions.
In this session we are joined by Dominik Huenniger (University of Hamburg) to hear about his ongoing research.
Abstract:
English naturalist Joseph Banks (1743-1820) is well known for his vast collections of botanical, zoological, and mineralogical specimens acquired from all around the globe through trade, correspondence, empire, and slavery. Zooming from the global to the microscopic, Banks attempted to cultivate cochineal in India, eradicate the ‘Hessian Fly’ in North America, studied weevils found at 32 Soho Square or Revesby Abbey, and examined butterflies encountered at Botany Bay. By centering on specific species in a social context, the article evaluates Banks’s own interests in and practices of insect collecting at home and abroad. The article argues that Bank’s activities were connected to early modern conceptions of oeconomy and the exchange of information and specimens went hand in hand: political and social economies of collection infrastructures were as important as attention to the specific ecologies of species. Notions of human economy and the economy of nature played a major role in the human-insect relations that informed the practices of insect cultivation as well as their eradication.
This event is free to attend, but in order to receive the advance reading material for this session please email to confirm your attendance.
gloknos is initially funded for 5 years by the European Research Council through a Consolidator Grant awarded to Dr Inanna Hamati-Ataya for her project ARTEFACT (2017-2022). ARTEFACT is funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (ERC grant agreement no. 724451). For information about gloknos or ARTEFACT please contact the administrator in the first instance.
