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From Kitchen to Laboratory

Friday, November 04
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
238 HRCB

In seventeenth-century England, science was considered a male prerogative, mostly reflected in men’s reluctance to allow women to receive scientific training. With the educational reforms of Comenius, some hoped that gendered notions would no longer restrain female scientific impulses. Despite their prominence in informal scientific circles, women were still barred from access to scientific institutions, so where and how did women learn science? As healthcare providers at home, some women took advantage of their situation, and their attitudes paved the way to a shift from “kitchen-physick” to “ladies’ chemistry.” Based on the recent research methodology investigating the work of these “Sisters of Alchemy,” this presentation explores the various locations where women’s scientific training may have taken place. Individual female determination serves as a unifying thread that leads from kitchens to distillation rooms, from private chambers to the salons of noblewomen.

Come listen to Sophie Soccard of Le Mans Université discuss "From Kitchen to Laboratory: Suitable Spaces for Women's Scientific Culture in Early Modern England" at this fall 2022 Global Women's Studies Colloquium event.

Sophie Soccard is a Senior Lecturer in Seventeenth-Century English Studies at Le Mans University, France. She is also a member of a researchers’ team which set up a physical and virtual exhibition project on Renaissance pedagogy, “Images of Humanist Childhood.” Her current research treats women’s education and the networks that facilitated learning in the contemporary context of gendered beliefs that pervaded different forms of knowledge.

You can watch this lecture live in 238 HRCB or via Zoom using meeting code 986 8474 5503 and passcode 856210.

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Academics Kennedy Center Events Women Lectures Gender Europe