Call for contributors for a Scientiae Panel on Alchemy at the RSA Virtual conference (Dec 2022)

Vittoria Feola is seeking contributors to a panel on “Call him alchemist! Alchemy, an early modern interdisciplinary cancel culture tool”.

Vittoria Feola would like to put together a Scientiae panel at the next RSA virtual conference, scheduled for December 2022. She is seeking contributors to a panel on “Call him alchemist! Alchemy, an early modern interdisciplinary cancel culture tool”. Branding somebody as an alchemist was an excellent way to smear one’s reputation in early modern Europe. Be it Italian Renaissance artist Parmigianino or English mathematician John Dee, or antiquary Elias Ashmole, to mention but a few significant examples of eminent individuals whose reputation has been subjected to vicious attacks on the basis of their connection to alchemy, there is ample evidence of targeted smear campaigns which have used one’s connections to alchemy as a powerful means to bring nemesis onto targeted historical figures.

While it is well known that alchemical practice bore a negative aura throughout the period, this panel will go one step further in discussing the literary strategies adopted in biographies of eminent men in fields as far apart as art and architecture, medicine, literature, and so forth. Thus the panel will be shedding light onto the shared uses of alchemy as a cancel culture tool in biographies of eminent people across a surprising range of disciplines. It will prompt questions about the connections between the history of science and other fields, while pointing out surprising common features which were shared by the cancelled individuals who have been branded alchemists.

Deadline for contacting Vittoria at vittoria.feola@unipd.it is 20 May 2022. Deadline for proposal submissions is 1 June 2022.