A narrative of the mechanization of the world view once shaped accounts of the emergence of the study of the economy. Scholars are now pointing to the ways alchemical theories and practices shaped and inspired new theories of circulation, value, and the perfectibility of nature in early modern Europe. This workshop will bring together historians of political economy and of alchemy to examine a vital nexus for a period of immense creativity in the alchemical and political study of value.

Huntington Library, Overseers Room

Sept 17th, 2010

9:00-9:30: Coffee and refreshments

Session One: 9:30-12:00

Chair: Tara Nummedal (Brown)

Vera Keller (USC)
Perfecting the State: Alchemical views of Progress in Politics, 1575-1625

Carl Wennerlind (Barnard)
Alchemy and Credit: The Quest for Infinite Improvement

Ted McCormick (Concordia)
The Economics of Alchemy and the Alchemy of Economics: Two Hartlibian Deployments of Transmutation

Lunch: 12:00-1:00

Session Two: 1:00-3:30

Chair: Bruce Moran (University of Nevada)

Margaret Garber (California State University, Fullerton)
Curious Commodities: Routes of chymical exchange in the Holy Roman Empire (1670-1700)

Andre Wakefield (Pitzer)
Matter, Mechanism and Monads: The Leibnizian Challenge

Lydia Barnett (Stanford)
The Theology of Improvement: Natural and Sacred Histories of the Earth