Domesticating Air: Chemistry, Material Culture, and Politics of Breathing Safely

Programme

9:30-10:00 Welcome Coffee

10:00-10:30 : Welcome and Introduction

10:00-12:30 Session 1: Breathing Bodies

Montserrat Cabré (School of Medicine. Universidad de Cantabria):The material handling of the air: Household and university expertise in the Medieval West
Elena Serrano (MPIWG-Berlin): Revolutionary airs: Politics, body boundaries, and the new French chem-istry in late eighteenth-century Spain
Oriana Walker (MPIWG-Berlin, Post-Doc History of Science, Harvard University): Breathing out of body: “tonus”, resuscitation, and breathing machines

12:30-13:30: Lunch

13:30-16:00 Session 2: Toxic Airs, Scholarly Practices

John Christie (Faculty of History, University of Oxford): Joseph Priestley and the politics of nitrous air eudiometry

Corinna Guerra (Laboratoire d’Excellence HAS-TEC, University College London, UK): Vapours calling. The role of the site called “Grotta del Cane” in chemical studies about gases in the 18th and 19th centuries

Session 3: Urban Air Hazards

Simona Valeriani (V&A, London, UK): Air between scientific enquiry, product design and mercan-tilism in 17th and 18th century England

Marie Thebaud-Sorger (CNRS, Centre Alexandre-Koyré, Paris): Bringing bodies back to life. Technical devices fighting asphyxia in 18th century French pol-itics of urban space

16:00-16:30: Round Table Coffee

Convenors: Elena Serrano (Max Planck Institute) and Marie Thébaud-Sorger (Centre Alexandre- Koyré)

Register by e-mail at secretary@mfo.ac.uk