Welcome to the Website of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC), publisher of the scholarly journal Ambix.
Founded in 1935, SHAC has consistently maintained the highest standards of scholarship in all aspects of the history of alchemy and chemistry from early times to the present. The Society has a wide international membership from over thirty countries.
We hold meetings and webinars, offer scholarly prizes and grants, and publish the journal Ambix. The Society’s newsletter, Chemical Intelligence, is published twice a year. We have also established the Graduate Network to bring together postgraduate students in the field.
Keep up to date with the news and events of SHAC by following us on Facebook and Twitter.
You can watch our SHAC Online Seminars on YouTube here.
Please note that changes are processed manually and you will receive a confirmation email when our records have been updated. For any queries please find relevant contact information on https://www.ambix.org/contact-us/
The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Professor Annette Lykknes (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) and Dr Brigitte Van Tiggelen (Science History Institute) who will present: Discovering elements in the age of radioactivity – two contrasting stories
This will be live on Thursday, 23 May 2024, beginning at 5.00pm BST (6.00pm CEST, 12 noon EST, 9.00am PST). The format will be a talk of 20-30 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion of half an hour. As with recent seminars the Zoom link can be freely accessed by anyone, member of SHAC or not, by booking through the following Ticket Source link:
Discovering elements in the age of radioactivity – two contrasting storiesAnnette Lykknes and Brigitte Van Tiggelen In a forthcoming edited volume on the nature of element discoveries the authors explore the discovery histories of selected chemical elements. The case studies presented allow to problematize and explore the unfolding of discoveries, how they are reported and what stage is considered as the discovery as well as how predictions and assumptions on what could exist shape these processes in scientific and historical practice. In this talk, we will present two contrasting stories from the context of radioactivity research.The first one is what might be considered as well-known discovery histories, namely those of radium and polonium, the very first new radioactive elements uncovered by Marie and Pierre Curie. But the new radioactive elements proposed by the Curies had not even been separated from the mineral fractions in which they were detected, and the main means of their identification was neither the balance nor the spectroscope which were the accepted ways of detecting elements but rather their characteristic and unique radioactivity.The second story looks at retrospective assessment and assignment of elemental discoveries, focusing on four claimed instances of element 43, before it was produced by nuclear means with a cyclotron and acknowledged by IUPAC and the chemical community as technetium in 1947. Going back in time, historians and scientists identify several “precursors” of technetium and a closer look at masurium, nihonium, davyum and ilmenium provide an opportunity to reflect further on the nature of discovery by taking into account the context of narration.
You are invited to attend the SHAC Spring Meeting ‘From Antique to Early Modern Alchemy: New Approaches, New Horizons’ held on 28 and 29 May 2024 at Maison Française d’Oxford. The meeting will host panels on topics that include ancient perfume making in Egypt and Assyria, alchemical symbolism and imagery, the use of new techniques such as machine learning for the history of alchemy or practical experimentation and furnace reconstructions. Please see programme attached for more information.
The event will also be hosted in hybrid format. A hybrid link will be provided about a week prior to the event. Please note the meeting ends at 1pm on 29 May. It is followed up by another related (and free) event, the Oxford Seminar in the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, ‘Meissen Coloration and Pacific Chemical Medicine’, featuring Nicholas Zumbulyadis (Delaware) and Mariana Sanchez (Paris), from 3pm to 5pm at Maison Française d’Oxford.
We are pleased to announce a double book launch event, to celebrate the publication of two books by distinguished and long-serving historians of science and chemistry.
Thomas Garnett: Science, Medicine, Mobility in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Bloomsbury) by Robert Fox Emeritus Professor of History of Science, Oxford, published in February 2024.
Carbon: A Biography (Polity), the English translation of Carbone. Ses vies, ses oeuvres (2018, Ed. Seuil) by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent Emeritus Professor Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Sacha Loeve (Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3), to be published in June 2024.
The launch will be held in the Salon at the Maison Française, Norham Rd., Oxford, 5-6pm, on Wednesday 22nd May, following the first meeting of the Oxford Seminar in the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (3pm-5pm Maison Française), where Bernadette will be delivering a paper entitled ‘Why a Biography of Carbon?’
Organizers: Jo Hedesan (georgiana.hedesan@history.ox.ac.uk) John Christie (jrrc_@hotmail.com)
We were sorry to have to postpone the on-line seminar two weeks ago due to technical difficulty. These have now been resolved and the seminar has been rescheduled to 25th April.
The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Professor Robert Fox (University of Oxford) who will present:
Thomas Garnett: Science, medicine, mobility in eighteenth-century Britain
This will be live on Thursday, 25th April 2024, beginning at 5.00pm British Summer Time (1 hour ahead of GMT). The format will be a talk of 20-30 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion of half an hour.
As with recent seminars the Zoom link can be freely accessed by anyone, member of SHAC or not, by booking through the following Ticket Source link:
The seminar will be also accessible live on YouTube
There are two other items that members of SHAC may find of interest.
The first is a call for papers for the History of Science Society Annual Meeting, Mérida, Mexico, 7-10 November 2024
Multidisciplinary approaches to the history of chemistry
Proposed session for History of Science Society Annual Meeting, Mérida, Mexico, 7-10 November 2024; co-sponsored by the HSS Forum on History of Chemistry, the Commission on the History of Chemistry and the Molecular Sciences and the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry.
The aim of the proposed session is to bring historians and practitioners of these multidisciplinary approaches to the history of chemistry together to contrast their results and methods, and to promote a multidisciplinary dialogue for the sake of the history of chemistry. We are, in particular, interested in addressing the following questions:
What specific questions can be resolved by the multidisciplinary approaches to the history of chemistry and which cannot?
What is the role of formal models in historiographical narratives?
What is the appropriate coarse-graining level for the history of chemistry, and to what extent can this level be addressed by different disciplines?
Can multidisciplinary approaches help link macrohistory with microhistory?
What formal models are most suitable for historiographical research?
What are the disciplinary challenges posed by the history of chemistry?
We invite scholars and researchers to submit abstracts addressing any of the aforementioned topics or related areas within the history of chemistry. Submissions may include empirical studies, theoretical frameworks, methodological advancements, or interdisciplinary perspectives. We encourage innovative approaches and welcome contributions from both established academics and early-career researchers.
If you are interested in participating in this session, please send your name, affiliation, email address and the topic of your presentation to Guillermo Restrepo (restrepo@mis.mpg.de) by 8 April 2024. At a later date, organizers will request a title and an abstract, but they are not needed at this stage.
The second is notification of the forthcoming 9th EuChemS Chemistry Congress (ECC-9), to be held in Dublin, Ireland, from 7th – 11th July, 2024.
The 9th EuChemS Chemistry Congress will have an exciting scientific programme with world-leading plenary speakers, invited speakers and short oral presentations, supplemented with a series of poster presentations, focused around eight scientific themes:
· Advances in Synthetic Organic Chemistry
· Catalysis
· Chemistry Meets Biology For Health
· Education, History, Cultural Heritage, and Ethics in Chemistry
· Energy, Environment and Sustainability
· Nanochemistry/Materials
· Physical, Analytical and Computational Chemistry /AI)
· Supramolecular Chemistry
· The programme will feature dedicated sessions organised by the EuChemS European Young Chemists´ Network of EuChemS (EYCN) and the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland (ICI)
The Oxford Seminar this year will be running three sessions, each consisting of two papers. The session dates and times are Weds May 22nd, May 29th, and June 5th 3pm-5pm, Salon at the Maison Française d’Oxford, Norham Rd, Oxford. Each session has two speakers, who will deliver papers of 30-40 minutes, leaving 20-30 minutes for questions and discussion.
WEDS MAY 22ND: Substance and Identity: Histoires Petites et Grandes John R.R. Christie (Oxford): ‘A salt sui generis’: Chemical Analyses of Scarborough Spa Waters, 1734 Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent (Paris): Why a Biography of Carbon?
WEDS MAY 29th: Meissen Coloration and Pacific Chemical Medicine Nicholas Zumbulyadis (Delaware): Chymistry and Art at the Cusp of the 17th and 18th centuries Mariana Sanchez (Paris): Distillation in the Phillipines in the 18th century
WEDS JUNE 5th: Acquiring science in early 19th century York: the diary of Jane Ewbank Rachel Feldberg (York): From Crocodiles to the Structure of the Universe: Jane Ewbank’s shifting engagement with the Natural World Matthew Eddy (Durham): Jane Ewbank and Experimental Philosophy: Public Lectures in late Georgian Yorkshire
The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry solicits nominations for the 2024 John and Martha Morris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the History of Modern Chemistry or the History of the Chemical Industry. This award honours the memory of John and Martha Morris, the late parents of Peter Morris, the former editor of Ambix, who has contributed the endowment for this award. The recipient chosen to receive the Morris Award will be expected to deliver a lecture at a meeting of SHAC, where the awardee will be presented with an appropriate framed photograph, picture or document and the sum of £300. The award is international in scope, and nominations are invited from anywhere in the world. Past winners of the Award include Ernst Homburg, Yasu Furukawa, Anthony S. Travis, Mary Jo Nye and Raymond Stokes.
A complete nomination consists of
• a complete curriculum vitae for the nominee, including biographical data, educational background, awards, honours, list of publications, and other service to the profession;
• a letter of nomination summarising the nominee’s outstanding scholarly achievement in either the history of the chemical industry or in the history of recent chemistry (post -1945) and the unique contributions that merit this award; and
• names of two or three individuals for the panel to contact for further information if needed.
Only complete nominations will be considered for the award and the nomination documents must be submitted in electronic form. The Award will be judged by the selection panel on the basis of scholarly publication. All nomination materials should be submitted by e-mail to Peter Morris at doctor@peterjtmorris.plus.com and a separate email which indicates that the material has been submitted should be sent to the same address (a precaution in case of incomplete transmission of documents) for arrival no later than 1 May 2024.
