HIST GR8906 Craft and Science: Making Objects in the Early Modern World


Fall 2017, Monday 10:10am - 2:10pm

Chandler 260 and Fayerweather 513




Instructors:
Prof. Pamela Smith
Email: ps2270@columbia.edu
Office: Fayerweather 605
Office Hours: Wednesdays 3–5pm and by appointment
Telephone: 212-854-7662

Dr. Sophie Pitman
Email: sp3457@columbia.edu
Office: Heyman Center B206
Office Hours: by appointment

Dr. Tillmann Taape
Email: tt2669@columbia.edu
Office: Heyman Center B206
Office Hours: Thursdays, 1–3 pm, and by appointment

Dr. Tianna Uchacz
Email: thu2102@columbia.edu
Office: Heyman Center B206
Office Hours: Tuesdays 2–4 pm and by appointment
Telephone: 646-416-1035

Project Manager:

Naomi Rosenkranz
Email: njr2128@columbia.edu
Telephone: (626) 374-6996

Project Assistant:

Caroline Surman
Email: cms2274@columbia.edu
Telephone: (626) 372-4714

Course Description:

This course studies the materials, techniques, settings, and meanings of skilled craft and artistic practices in the early modern period (1350-1750), in order to reflect upon a series of issues, including craft knowledge and artisanal epistemology; the intersections between craft and science; and questions of historical methodology and evidence in the reconstruction of historical experience. The course is run as a “Laboratory Seminar”, with discussions of primary and secondary materials, as well as hands-on work in a laboratory. This course is one component of the Making and Knowing Project of the Center for Science and Society and more information on the Project can be found here. From 2014-19, this course contributes to the collective production of a transcription, English translation, and critical edition of a late sixteenth-century manuscript in French, Ms. Fr. 640.