Institute of Modern Languages Research,
London, UK
27-28 June 2014
Fee: £10 / £5 (concs.)
Speakers to include:
Professor Barbara Gates (University of Delaware)
Professor Ann Shteir (York University, Ontario, Canada)
Scholars have long been familiar with the scientific endeavours of late 19th-century women travellers like Isabella Bird and Mary Kingsley, but these figures have generally been assumed to be pioneers, blazing a new path for scientifically inclined women. Recent research, however, has begun to uncover Bird and Kingsley’s many predecessors in the 18th- and early 19th-centuries – women such as Maria Riddell, Maria Graham and Sarah Bowdich, whose journeys to regions such as the West Indies, South America and West Africa were productive of scientific knowledge and debate across a range of disciplines. This two-day workshop, organised by Nottingham Trent University’s Centre for Travel Writing Studies and sponsored by the British Academy, will shed further light on women’s scientific travelling in the period before 1850, as well as exploring the wider intellectual and cultural networks which enabled and assisted women’s participation in contemporary science, and also women’s role as travellers between different scientific communities and audiences.
Spaces are limited, so early booking is advised. For more information, contact Dr Carl Thompson (carl.thompson@ntu.ac.uk).
Registration form and programme now available here.
