Summer 2021 Field Notes

Summer 2021 was the first offering of the Laboratory Seminar HIST GU4962: Making and Knowing in Early Modern Europe: Hands-On History at Columbia University by the Making and Knowing Project. The course contributed to exploratory and experimental projects that serve as companion pieces to Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France. A Digital Critical Edition and English Translation of BnF Ms. Fr. 640. Students in the course explored themes and making practices as detailed in BnF Ms. Fr. 640. Organized by student researcher, the pages below are results from their hands-on reconstruction and skill building work. Their final projects are published in the Making and Knowing Project's Research and Teaching Companion.

Notably, this course was an intensive six-week summer session, taught remotely. Students received some materials for hands-on work by mail, but sourced tools and other materials from their homes and dorm rooms. During hands-on work, students and instructors met by video calls from kitchens, gardens, bedrooms, and more locations.

Index of Field Notes from Summer 2021, Grouped by Researcher

Elizabeth Branscum

Anna Christensen

Mackenzie Fox

Sophie Macomber

Ingrid Romero

Example Notes by Naomi Rosenkranz (Assistant Director)

Mellon (Vivan) Snyder

Julia Tomasson

Madi Whitman